


Chilmark Project IV - Ancient Evil

by spookyawards_archivist



Category: F/X: The Series, Highlander, The Sentinel, The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Crossover, Episode: s04e23 Demons, F/M, Friendship, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-31
Updated: 2005-12-31
Packaged: 2019-04-28 04:40:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14441583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyawards_archivist/pseuds/spookyawards_archivist
Summary: This is the sequel to Foxhunt; Mulder isrecovering but, just to make things more interesting, there are two serial killers operating in nearbySeacouver.  Can Mulder NOT get involved in that?  Of course not!





	Chilmark Project IV - Ancient Evil

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Spooky Awards](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Spooky_Awards), and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2018. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [SpookyAwards' collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/spookyawards/profile).
> 
>  **Author's notes:** DISCLAIMER: They certainly aren't mine; if they were, they'd be having more fun, and I wouldn't have to save  
>  up for a new car! Mulder, Scully, Skinner and the rest belong to FOX Networks and 1013; Macleod, Methos, Amanda, Joe and Matt McCormick belong to Rysher, Blair and Jim belong to  
> Pet Fly. Rollie and Angie belong to Rysher as well. I'm pretty sure anyone else you meet is an original character we created. We're just borrowing the  
> others' characters for a little fun and games.we  
> promise we'll bring them back on time and unharmed. and they won't remember a thing.

  
Author's notes: DISCLAIMER: They certainly aren't mine; if they were, they'd be having more fun, and I wouldn't have to save  
up for a new car! Mulder, Scully, Skinner and the rest belong to FOX Networks and 1013; Macleod, Methos, Amanda, Joe and Matt McCormick belong to Rysher, Blair and Jim belong to  
Pet Fly. Rollie and Angie belong to Rysher as well. I'm pretty sure anyone else you meet is an original character we created. We're just borrowing the  
others' characters for a little fun and games.we  
promise we'll bring them back on time and unharmed. and they won't remember a thing.  


* * *

Rescue plus 10 days  
1:20pm.  
Downtown Seacouver 

("So what's your explanation, and how are you going to sell it to the SAC?") Scully asked him. ("Why do you think he hasn't killed yet?") 

Mulder glanced down at his partner as they walked back to the Miklaus Task Force offices from the elevator bank. This was the FBI's regional office complex: floors four, five, six and seven of the James H. Dillon Federal Office Building in downtown Seacouver. The cafeteria was on the eighth floor, and they had just finished lunch. 

("It won't be hard,") he shook his head. ("Miklaus kills rarely... sometimes only once or twice in a calendar year. Longest dry spell we can document was eighteen months. Whoever killed those six prostitutes, it wasn't Miklaus. Those killings don't fit his profile or his historical victimology.") 

He was not surprised that she was using their bond for what was, actually, idle conversation; they both used it almost exclusively, now, especially when they were in public. They had been overheard too often in the past; this way no one could eavesdrop on their conversations. 

("We know he's here; Laddey picked him out of a photo array twice. He hasn't done any killing; we haven't found any victim cluster that matches his profile. It's been almost two years; he's due. Do you suppose he's actually here hunting for Laddey?") 

Mulder considered that as he held the door for her, and they went inside. ("Probably. Otherwise it's just too much of a coincidence. And Rutuska will just have to admit that he's got two serials working here.") 

("Will you and Agent McCormick want to split up, and each take one, or can you work them both together?") 

Mulder did not have to guess her opinion; she did not want him working, at all. She would certainly oppose him working on two cases, despite the fact that she knew perfectly well that ISU agents routinely had caseloads of 35 to 50. They went into the Task Force offices and he pulled the door closed behind them. 

The offices were empty; all Task Force personnel were out chasing leads. The only reason they were not on the road like everyone else was Skinner's stubborn refusal to take Mulder off restricted duty. Scully was just as glad. Mulder was recovering with his usual amazing speed, but he still had little stamina and tired easily. He was eating voraciously and his metabolism was cranked so high that she could feel the fire of his life force blazing when he lay beside her at night. 

( _And it's amazing that either of us is getting any sleep._ ) She shivered deliciously at the thought of Mulder lying beside her. 

He grinned and changed the image to one of her on top. 

She flushed as the heat rose in her body. ("Mulder, please! We're at work!") 

He shrugged and let the image fade. ("You started it.") 

She glanced up, biting her lip. ("Was I sending? I'm sorry; I didn't mean to... my thoughts were wandering.") 

He leaned down and kissed her lightly. 

She 'saw' the image of her tattoo in his eyes, and realized that he had picked up the image because he had been touching her. She could not help but grin. ("Your touch inflames me...") she purred. 

His expression shifted in a subtle fashion as he ended the kiss and straightened. ("Don't start this now,") he asked. ("It's too early in the day. Give me a break, Sweetheart. Please.") 

("Sorry. Professional mode back on, sir.") 

("Goof,") he snorted, not offended by her irreverence. 

("But I'm your goof, and you love me.") 

("Yep.") 

("Good. Ditto.") 

"Mulder!" a voice greeted them from the hallway door. 

They spun apart in opposite directions, so neither's access to a weapon would be impaired, so that they would divide a foe's attention. The bondmates were both reaching for their sidearms  
as Mulder finished his turn and recognized the man who had hailed him. 

"Matt!" he grinned, letting his hand fall away from his weapon. 

Scully relaxed instantly and just watched as her bondmate and the stranger hugged. She decided that Mulder and this man had known each other in Behavioral Science. There were really only two kinds of relationships formed in the crucible of full-time criminal profiling: the hissing vitriolic hatred she had seen from Bill Patterson, and the shared-foxhole relationships she had seen between Mulder and his Violent Crimes partner, Reggie Perdue and, to a lesser extent, his BSU partner Jerry Lamanna. Obviously, this was another shield brother. 

"Scully, this is Matt McCormick. We worked together on the Miklaus case ten years ago. Matt, my partner, Dana Scully." 

"Honored to meet you, ma'am," McCormick showed just a bit too much the Southern gentleman to win Scully at once, but she did notice how happy Mulder was to see this man. 

"How are you, Agent McCormick," Scully shook his hand, and noticed that he had started to lift her hand to his lips for a kiss. 

("That's not a front or a pose,") Mulder assured her. ("He really is Rhett Butler.") 

("I'm not Scarlett.") 

("You're MINE.") 

"Time out," McCormick laughed. "You two need to work on your public behavior." 

One pair of intense hazel eyes and one pair of flaring blue eyes swung toward him, united against him. 

"What are you talking about?" Scully growled. 

"When you're talking telepathically, you turn to look at one another," he explained, moving into the room and claiming a chair at the conference table. "Once your eyes meet, the rest of the  
world, all too obviously, ceases to exist for you." 

"What the hell...?" Mulder started to growl. 

"Hey, relax," McCormick said calmly as he dropped wearily into his seat. "I'm the one who gave Skinner his initial briefing in the care and feeding of Sentinels; Ellison's captain is an old friend of mine, from before I joined the Bureau. Blair's kept me updated on the developments here." 

Slowly, the bondmates let themselves relax, but Scully's hands were still trembling. 

("We have to...") 

("Shh. Later.") Mulder sat on the couch at the other end of the room. "So what took you so long?" he asked. "We expected you three days ago." 

"I was tied up in court on another case," McCormick scrubbed at his face, "in Alabama." 

Mulder grinned. "That's why your accent got thick again." 

McCormick glared at him. "And you will never convince me that you're from Massachusetts." 

Mulder shrugged, swung his feet up and lay down. Scully pulled a chair close, but did not touch him. 

"My mom was from New York and I spent my formative years traveling," he repeated what he had told McCormick years before. "I spent most of my life before I was ten in Eastern Europe and Northern Africa, so I never picked up the Cape accent. And after nearly eight years in England, whatever was left got smothered by BBC official Queen's English." 

"A likely story," was how McCormick always responded. Then he looked at the wall above Mulder and sighed at the familiarity of the detailed relationships schematic there. "Did you learn anything new about him?" he asked without much real hope. 

Mulder was lying still with his eyes closed. "Study it," he said briefly. "Tell me if you see anything that you didn't already know." 

("Crashing?") Scully asked quietly. 

("Just a nap... just for a few minutes...") He hated the idea that he really had no control over these waves of exhaustion that still swept over him every few hours. 

("Sleep, my love,") she ordered gently. ("I'll be here.") 

("Wake me if you have to leave - ") 

("Of course. Sleep. You need it.") 

He mumbled something and she saw his body start to relax into slumber. She hummed Brahms's Lullaby at him mentally, and he fell asleep smiling. 

"Is he really asleep?" McCormick asked, startled, his voice low. 

Scully nodded. "Yes," she replied just as quietly. "His stamina isn't recovering as fast as he wishes. This happens several times a day." 

McCormick scrubbed at his face again, then stood up. "I'll go..." 

"I'm going to stay with him," Scully said unnecessarily. "We're all meeting at a restaurant called Rocci's for dinner tonight; will you be there?" 

McCormick frowned as he turned to face her again. "'We' as in the Task Force or 'we' as in the Friends of Duncan MacLeod?" 

Scully blinked. "The Task Force. But I think Duncan had a word with the owner so we could get the back room on such short notice." 

He relaxed slowly, and she realized that he was tired and stressed out, too, just like everyone else. 

"Take it easy, Agent McCormick. You look like you could use a nap, too; why don't you take the other couch?" 

"I'm on duty..." he protested weakly. 

She made a face. "I know as well as you do that BSU works 24/7," she informed him. "Take a nap. Mulder's been known to solve cases in his sleep; why don't you try it?" 

* * *

Scully was sitting at the conference table, working on her laptop. The backlight from the screen was the only light in the room. Around her, the only other sounds were the soft snores from  
Agent McCormick on his couch, and Mulder's quiet breathing from his. A part of her awareness was monitoring Mulder's dreams, diverting any trace of nightmare, keeping him content and peaceful. 

Her hold on him was secure enough that when the door slammed open, Mulder did not stir. Scully looked up to see the local SAC, Gene Rutuska, standing in the doorway. 

"Can I help you, Agent Rutuska?" she asked icily, standing up and folding her arms across her chest. 

"What the hell is going on here?" he snarled. "It's the middle of the damned day!" 

"Agent Rutuska!" Scully's voice had a snap in it like an icicle breaking, and he remembered that those who did not call her Mrs. Spooky usually called her the Ice Queen. "I'll remind you that Agent Mulder is here only as a consultant; he is on restricted duty and under doctor's orders to rest as much as possible." 

She was right, but he did not like to be backed down. "That doesn't excuse McCormick," he sneered. "I've about had it with all you prima donnas coming in from Headquarters and expecting us to kowtow to you as you take over my investigation!" 

Scully sat back down and leaned back in her chair. "Sit down, Agent Rutuska." He tried to expostulate; she cut him off. "I said, sit down, Agent Rutuska!" 

He sat. 

McCormick had been awakened by the SAC's entrance, but had feigned sleep while he tried to come up with an acceptable excuse. He soon forgot the futile exercise in the fascination of listening to Scully ream out the agent who was their ostensible superior officer on this case with amazing precision, leaving him flayed, all without once raising her voice or using one crude or profane term. 

"You are the SAC here, certainly. You are not, however, in charge of the Miklaus Task Force. Nor have either Agent Mulder or myself been assigned to assist you," she pointed out calmly. "The only reason that Agent McCormick is here is because a friend of ours spotted his suspect, Miklaus, in town. There have been no murders attributable to him here, and we are not at all certain if Miklaus is still in this state. We could be leaving on a moment's notice." 

"I'm still..." 

"You are in charge of the hunt for the Rysher Creek Killer," she reminded him, the edge in her voice almost disguised by her courteous phrasing. "And you've obviously never worked with  
the profiling unit before," she trampled right over him, ignoring his attempts to speak. "Profiling isn't a nine-to-five occupation. A profiler is thinking about the case every waking moment, and his brain continues to process it while he sleeps. If you will look in Mulder's file, you will find that he actually dreamed the location of a victim of a serial killer a decade after the man was convicted. Yes, he's sleeping. But that doesn't mean he isn't working." 

"Everyone's heard of fuckin' Spooky Mulder," Rutuska was finally allowed to speak. "But even if he's a walking mentalist act, that doesn't explain why he's sacked out here. What's his excuse?" 

Scully was fed up. ( _Where has this idiot been the last three months?_ ) she wondered. She went back to her laptop and retrieved a .jpg file. "Look at these photographs, Agent Rutuska." 

Curious despite himself, he moved around the table till he could see the screen. The photographs that scrolled slowly up the screen were obviously evidence photos; they all showed a man brutally mistreated. 

"What am I looking at?" he growled, disturbed more than he cared to admit by the man's suffering. 

"Those photos are of Agent Mulder," she said flatly. "They were taken upon his escape ten days ago, before he was treated for his injuries. He had been held prisoner for fourteen weeks." 

Rutuska paled, and glanced furtively at the agent sleeping so heavily on the couch. "What the hell is he doing working at all?" 

Scully closed the file. "He volunteered," she said quietly. "Once he learned that the case was open here, we could not keep him from working on it. He would be working it even if he was still hospitalized, Agent. This isn't a job for him. It's a vocation. It's what he is, not just what he does." 

Rutuska did not know how to respond. At the far end of the room, McCormick sat up slowly and stretched, hoping that he would get screamed at but not officially censured. Scully heard the door open again and turned that way. She was surprised to see Skinner standing there, looking grim. 

"Sir?" 

"We have a victim cluster, Agent Scully," Skinner growled. "The Task Force is meeting here in half an hour." 

"We'll be ready, sir," she promised. 

* * *

The Briefing. 1500 hours 

All the shifting and low-voiced conversation in the room stopped abruptly as Assistant Director Skinner went to the front of the room. 

"As best as we can construct it at this time, this is what happened. Seacouver Police Captain Ray Bennett, age 45 and a 21-year veteran of the force, left for work this morning at 0645 hours. At home he left his wife Laurel, age 38, and their two daughters, Jessica, aged 8 years, and Brittany, aged 2 . Shortly after Captain Bennett left the home, Miklaus entered. For purely practical reasons, it would appear likely that he attacked and killed Mrs. Bennett first. She was beaten with a skillet, stabbed repeatedly, and raped; we do not yet know in what order. 

"Once Mrs. Bennett was at least incapacitated, we speculate, he treated eight year old Jessica the same way. Then he turned his attention to the toddler." 

Skinner had to stop to school his emotions out of his voice. 

"Captain Bennett is not a deskbound commander, and regularly spends a significant amount of time in an unmarked unit, backing up the men working his precinct. He made it a practice to stop off at home if he was in the neighborhood because the baby's been sick lately," he continued, his voice flat and uninflected. "He arrived in time to see Miklaus begin to dismember the baby. The baby..." Skinner closed his eyes and swallowed a rising bile, "was still alive at that point." 

Scully, seated on the couch beside Mulder, gasped in horror even knowing that it had been a possibility, along with most of the agents in the room. Mulder, sitting with his head back, his eyes closed and his feet up on a folding chair, did not move in the least. When she turned her attention to him, she found him so totally barricaded, on every level, that she could not hear what he was thinking. When she would have spoken, Skinner continued, and she stayed quiet to listen. 

"Captain Bennett shot Miklaus in the body. When he attempted to cuff the suspect, Miklaus attacked the Captain. One of the neighbors heard the screams and the gunshot, and called 911 to report an officer in trouble at the Captain's residence. The first unit was on the scene in about five minutes. They found Captain Bennett unconscious and the suspect about to behead him with a sword." 

Matthew McCormick leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, scrubbing at his face. 

"The officers shot Miklaus four times and were able to cuff him. He was still struggling, so they put him in the back of their patrol unit. Other units arrived, and the Assistant Chief took over the scene. Bennett, as can be imagined, was not in any condition to be interviewed. The suspect was covered with blood, so the Assistant Chief told the two arresting officers to take the suspect for treatment. Somewhere between the crime scene and the hospital, Miklaus escaped. He killed both patrol officers and drove their unit for several miles until he managed to pull over a young housewife. He carjacked her, took her new Ford Expedition and vanished. Her  
three-year-old son was in a car seat in the back." 

"The Bennett baby was DOA at the hospital. The Captain's wife and older daughter were dead at the scene. The boy taken in the carjacking is still missing." 

Skinner let his gaze travel over his team, giving them time to assimilate the horror of it all. 

"All right. Mulder, you and McCormick interview Bennett; he's at the hospital. CSI is on the scene already, but Flanders and Aubrecht, you go to the scene and take over supervision; the local guy was off-duty quite a while ago and deserves to be relieved." 

Mulder climbed to his feet and headed for the door. He did not care how the rest of the assignments were handed out; Skinner did not tolerate incompetence. McCormick held the door for him, and was surprised when Scully joined them. 

"Don't you have autopsies to do?" he asked. 

"They aren't going anywhere," Scully said quietly. "And I'm not all that anxious to autopsy two small children and their mother. The morgue staff will be taking the photographs and doing the external for trace evidence for a while. They don't need me for that and Dr. Morrigan is quite competent." 

McCormick grinned humorlessly. "I didn't think you'd let me take him without you." 

"Not on your life. Besides, Bennett's at the same hospital as the morgue. After we finish with him, I can always go downstairs if I need to." 

"How about if you two ride with me? We can all talk that way?" 

"Sure. What are you driving?" 

"Bureau Taurus," he admitted. 

"It'll work," Mulder agreed. "God, I'm not looking forward to this..." 

The ride out was quiet; Mulder actually managed to nap a little. 

* * *

Bennett had been taken to County General Hospital for observation after his head injury. It had certainly been done as much to keep him safely away from the investigation as for his health. He had recovered consciousness readily and denied so much as a headache when the young nurse who was taking his history at the ER asked him how he felt. 

"He's in room 4, over there," the young woman gestured, but clearly had no inclination to go back in there. 

As they walked across the bustling Emergency Department, Mulder frowned, then stopped, reaching out blindly for support. McCormick caught him, stood still while Mulder re-established his equilibrium. 

("Mulder!") Scully's touch on his other wrist was cold with fear. ("What's wrong?") 

"Can't you hear that awful noise?" he gasped aloud. 

"No. Is it like that buzz that bothered you the other day at Chazz's?" 

("Yeah... but worse.") 

Scully did not try to hide her relief. "Then it should fade. Relax. Slow, deep breaths." 

It took him a few moments to get control over it. Then he shook it off and let go of McCormick. 

"Okay, now?" McCormick watched him narrowly. 

"Yeah. It hasn't gone away... but I can handle it. I'm okay." 

"You're sure?" 

"Yeah. Thanks." Mulder turned back toward the curtained room. Scully and McCormick followed him. 

Mulder stopped at the curtain and knocked on the wall divider. "Captain Bennett?" 

"Yeah?" came from inside the room. 

"You decent?" 

The curtain was flung aside. "Why do you...?" He slammed his jaw shut. "You're FBI, aren't you?" Bennett put his hand to his head as if trying to rub away a headache. 

Mulder nodded. "I'm Fox Mulder. My partner, Special Agent Dana Scully. From our Behavioral Science Unit in Washington DC, Special Agent Matthew McCormick." 

Bennett glared at them and went back inside. They followed. 

McCormick grabbed some chairs from the hallway and shoved them into the alcove. He did not mind standing, but Mulder was too close to the edge of physical endurance. McCormick was too much of a gentleman to expect Agent Scully to stand, and he knew that Mulder would resist sitting if she had to stand. McCormick seated Agent Scully, much to her bemusement, and shoved a chair at Mulder with studied nonchalance. Mulder dropped into it gratefully. 

Bennett sat on the exam table and stared at the three of them. "Okay. I suppose you want to know what happened." 

McCormick nodded warily. "First, you want to ID the perp for us?" 

Bennett's expression was absolutely blank. "Sure; photo array?" 

"Yeah." McCormick reached inside his jacket and pulled out a sheaf of a dozen photos. They were all booking shots, showing full face and profile views of twelve men. All the men were similar in build and coloring, as well as in expression. 

Bennett watched as McCormick laid them out in three rows of four on the end of the exam table. He studied the photos intently, gnawing on his lip. 

"I never realized how hard this could be," he admitted. "I thought his face was burned into my brain forever." He continued to study these until, after five or six minutes, he picked out the third photo in the second row. "This is him." 

"Turn it over," McCormick suggested. 

Bennett looked up at him, puzzled. "Why?" 

McCormick just nodded toward the photo. 

Bennett flipped it... and swayed. 

Lettered neatly across the back were the words, "Mik Clauss, a/k/a Michael Klass, a/k/a Miklaus the Cannibal." 

"He was arrested in a small town just outside of Cleveland in 1975 for vagrancy and released after serving his ten days," McCormick explained. "They found the bodies two weeks after they let him go, matched him to it with fingerprints. He kills one or two families every year." 

"Twenty... nearly thirty years of killing and nobody can catch him?" Bennett asked incredulously. 

"His pattern of killing is incredibly random." McCormick spread his hands. "He's a hard man to hold," he started to explain. "He killed the two officers who took him into custody at your house, carjacked a woman for her SUV and escaped." There was no point in adding the detail of the child's kidnapping; Bennett had enough on his mind. 

Bennett's strength failed him and he dropped to slump on the exam table. "They're dead?" he whispered, shocked. "Mace and Harry are dead?" 

McCormick nodded sadly. "Yes." 

"They'd shot the bastard to doll rags!" Bennett protested. "He was bleeding all over the place... he'd taken five rounds to the body! How could he do that?" 

McCormick bit his lip. "If I tell you, all three of you need to promise not to reveal this information. The logic behind that will be apparent." 

Scully's gaze sharpened. ("What the hell...?") 

("Let him talk. I think this is gonna be good.") Mulder's attention was on McCormick. "Go ahead, Matt," he said softly. "You either trust us or you don't." 

McCormick grimaced. "I have to tell you this, Bennett, because it directly affects you. I have to tell you, Mulder, because if I don't, Miklaus is probably going to get away and continue this murder spree he's on." 

Mulder nodded slowly. "Thirty years is long enough. We want to catch the bastard." 

McCormick shuddered. "Thirty years was enough in 1644," he growled. "Miklaus has been butchering children at least since then. He's an Immortal." He waited a beat. "So am I." He waited another beat as he turned to face Ray Bennett. "So are you." 

There was a long stretched out moment of silence. It was Bennett who broke it. "Immortal? What the hell are you talking about?" 

"Miklaus's favorite prey is new Immortals. He butchers their families and then kills the Immortal. If he can't find an Immortal with a family, a regular mortal family will do until he can find a family of his preferred victims. That's his pattern." He glanced at Mulder. "That's why all the profiles of him are inadequate," he explained apologetically. "The entire Immortal dynamic is central to everything he does, but no one knows that but me." 

"Keep talking," was all Mulder said. 

"We're Immortal for no reason we know, by no methodology we understand. Some people, if they die by violence, come back Immortal. That's all we're sure of." 

"What do you mean, Immortal?" Scully glanced at him. "You live forever?" Her skepticism was fairly blazing out of her eyes. 

McCormick shrugged. "We don't age, get sick or die of natural causes," he answered her calmly. "We can be killed; that was what Miklaus was about to do when the backup arrived." 

"You mean beheading?" Mulder spoke up. Scully could hear him thinking hard, memories of several X-Files flashing through his memory. 

McCormick nodded, and rubbed his own throat. Then he shuddered and squared his shoulders. "We are a self-contained sub-culture, with our own traditions, our moral code, and  
mythology. We are all, like it or not, participating in The Game. We are subject to challenge. The Rules state that we have to respond to a challenge and fight a duel fairly, with swords or other mutually-agreed-upon weapons. Two go out; one comes back." 

"Dueling has been illegal in the US for well over a hundred years," Mulder pointed out dryly. 

"We don't care," McCormick said quietly. "Our duels are private because the winner takes the loser's head and acquires the loser's Quickening. That's life force, experience, wisdom... everything. It comes by lightning; it's important that there are no witnesses. The winner is incapacitated by the victory for a short time... usually less maybe ten minutes." 

"So you would be vulnerable to any witness for that time?" Mulder asked. 

"Yeah." McCormick sighed, and rubbed at the back of his neck. "Quickenings are additive," he went on. "The more you take, the stronger you are...and the more of a target you are. Remember the stories of the old West? About the cocky youngster going after the old gunslinger just to prove himself?" He waiting till they nodded their understanding and then went on. "The same thing happens among Immortals. The older you are, the more Quickenings you've taken, the stronger you are...and the more time you spend looking over your shoulder. The hottest swordsman of the Millennium lives right here in Seacouver; he wanders away frequently, just to throw off the pursuit, but he has never walked away from a fight. A finer, more honorable man never lived. If I can't win The Prize, I'll be pleased if he does, and he's half my age." 

Mulder's head tipped to one side, making him look quizzical. "Um...'The Prize?'" 

McCormick shrugged. "We play the Game; last man standing wins the Prize." 

"What is it?" 

He dropped his hands. "We have no idea." 

"Let me get this straight," Scully's voice was just short of scornful. "You claim to be Immortal, immune to aging and disease, yet you spend all these lifetimes hunting one another down with swords?? And you call it a game?" Mulder heard the outrage in her voice, felt the moral indignation coming off of her in waves. 

"There's only one refuge," McCormick said quietly. "Holy ground. Any religion, any faith, any path, but space made sacred is sanctuary." He turned his attention back to Bennett, who was  
watching him with glazed eyes. "Any questions?" 

Bennett startled, then swallowed hard. "How old are you?" 

McCormick sighed, shoved his hands in his pockets. "I was born in Salisbury, England, in the Year of Our Lord 1222," he replied, his eyes staring over Bennett's head at some distant memory. "I died the first time impaled on a lance at a tournament in 1255. For a time I consoled myself that God was including me in His plans, for He had taken me at the same age as He had taken Jesus. But that wore off." 

"You expect us to believe that you're nearly 800 years old?" Scully's voice was thick with disgust. "That's absurd. C'mon, Mulder; we have a killer to catch." 

Scully turned away, but Mulder made no move to follow her. ("Wait.") 

"I hate this part," McCormick said tonelessly. 

Scully turned back. "What part?" 

McCormick looked up at her. "If you shot me dead, in eight or ten minutes, depending upon the damage I took, I'd stand up and be fine," he stated. "It's not that we can't be injured or killed... it's that we heal so quickly, and that even death will not stop the healing process. We feel pain just like you do, without the exacerbating component of fear, because we know it won't kill us. But every time we die, it feels like dying." He swallowed, and glanced at Mulder.  
"You still carrying that Gerber E-Z-Out?" 

Mulder blinked. "I don't have it. It's in DC." He had not even thought of the pocket knife. The Gunmen had brought him clothes and his firearms and wallet, but they had not brought that. 

"I need a blade..." 

"Don't you carry a sword?" Scully sneered. 

He stared at her coolly. "Not on duty. Someone jumps me now, I shoot him and take him out into the wilderness somewhere where we can fight in peace." 

Mulder stood up and rummaged through the medical equipment on the counter and the drawers. It did not take him long to find a scalpel. "Good enough?" 

McCormick took it. "Yeah. Watch this - I'm only doing it once because it hurts like a bitch." He leaned against the counter, rolled up his left sleeve, and set the blade against the soft pale skin on the inside of his forearm. Before anyone could protest, or move to interfere, he cut down into the muscle, dragged the blade up from wrist to elbow. Blood welled up thickly, ran off his arm in streams, not paltry drops. 

Scully gasped in horror, dashed forward with hands extended to intervene. She skidded to a halt as lightning flickered across the wound. She stared as the blood stopped flowing and the cut healed itself by the light of tiny flickers of lightning. 

"Wow...!" Mulder breathed, his eyes shining as he watched. "Cool!" 

Bennett, too, could only stare. "That's Immortal healing?" he whispered. 

When the wound closed, McCormick wiped off the thick smear of blood with a paper towel, and dropped it casually into the waste basket. 

Scully used a latex glove to remove it. "Biohazard waste doesn't go there," she started to explain. 

"It can't be a biohazard, Agent Scully," McCormick said softly. "No disease can survive contact with our blood." 

Scully glanced at Mulder, who met her gaze unflinching. The image of the black oil was stronger for coming from each of them at the same time. Then he remembered his imprisonment in Tunguska, and shuddered, tearing his eyes away, scrubbing at his face. 

("Hey, it's over,") she crooned to him. ("Shh...") 

McCormick saw them sharing a moment, and wondered what they were saying to one another. He rolled his sleeve back down and re-buttoned his cuff. 

"That's Immortal healing," he answered Bennett's awed question. 

"I can't do that!" Bennett protested faintly. 

McCormick, at his wit's end for a way to convince the new guy, reached out with the scalpel and slammed it down into the back of Bennett's hand where it rested on his thigh. The impact drove the point of the blade through the hand and into the leg beneath. 

Bennett gasped in shock. 

Before the Captain could exhale, before he could make a sound, McCormick carelessly yanked the blade out. Blood followed it and the lightning flickered from the wound up to the tip of the blade. 

Bennett stared at his hand, flexing it, rubbing it with his other hand, testing it. 

"Well?" Scully demanded of him. 

He looked up at her, his eyes wide with amazement. "It's gone. It doesn't hurt! There's no cut! There's no scar!" 

"Told ya," McCormick shrugged. "Minor wounds like that are just annoyances." He sighed and stretched, flexing stiff shoulder muscles. "And that buzzing hum that you heard?" 

Both Bennett and Mulder looked up. "Yeah?" they said in unison. 

Bennett frowned at the agent. "You're Immortal, too? Then how come you didn't know all this?" 

"I'm not Immortal," Mulder denied. "Believe me, I don't heal like that." In his mind, he felt Scully's shiver, and he reached out with one hand to soothe her. 

"No, you're not," McCormick agreed. "But you are a Sentinel. That gives you access to information from senses other people don't have. One of the things that Sentinels can perceive that other mortals cannot is the reverb of the Kenning between two Immortals." 

"Kenning?" Mulder asked. 

"We can feel one another's proximity; it feels like a buzz or a hum, but it isn't a sound. The stronger the Immortal, the louder the reverb. Sentinels can't hear just one of us, but if there are two or more, you can hear the reverb, just like we do." 

"So you can feel or hear or whatever one another's presence? What's the range?" Mulder asked, his insatiable curiosity surfacing. 

McCormick shrugged. "It varies. I've heard bragging stretch the range to a quarter mile, but I've never known anyone who could actually detect someone farther than about a hundred and fifty feet, plus or minus a bit." 

Mulder glanced at Scully. "So Immortals can feel one another just about as far away as Scully and I can talk." 

Bennett frowned. "'Talk?'" he asked, puzzled. 

Mulder shrugged. "You made yourselves vulnerable to us," he said quietly. "I'm just leveling the playing field. Yes, I'm a Sentinel. Scully's my Guide. We're mutually telepathic; we can 'talk' telepathically as long as we're within a range of about a hundred or so feet. We have a non-verbal bond that has a range of somewhere around three thousand miles. Being a Sentinel means that I'm not limited to the ordinary five senses. I have others." 

Bennett frowned. "What kind of other senses?" 

Mulder smiled faintly. "I'm an empath, according to Blair." He looked up at McCormick. "He says I really do connect with the UNSUB. Remember how I could never really explain how I  
knew some things?" 

McCormick nodded slowly. "Yeah... like when you said the guy would have a speech impediment. You wowed 'em with that one." 

Mulder nodded. "Apparently none of it was educated guesses," he explained. "I connect, on an emotional level, with the UNSUB. I really can look out through his eyes, touch with his hands, feel what he feels..." His voice trailed off and he shivered, looking around warily. 

Scully stood up, moved close behind him, and began to rub his shoulders gently. ("Sshhh...I'm here...") 

("It hurts... There's so much pain here...") 

("This is a hospital. Of course there is. You need to learn to control those shields better.") 

He stared at her for a moment. ("What the hell are you talking about?") 

She bit her lip. ("You've been sleeping a lot; I've been talking to Blair. He's been studying what Sentinels are for a long time. I needed to know what he knows.") 

Mulder grinned wanly and shook his head in wonder. ("My little perfectionist at work.") 

Scully could only smile tightly. ("He thinks that, as an empath, you have to have some kind of emotional shields around your own mind, or the emotions of others around you will overwhelm you. You've been okay, and I didn't think too much of it. Blair admits that this is all hypotheses; Jim is just a physical-senses modifier. Blair didn't think you could handle crowds of any sort, or large groups of people, until you got some conscious control over your shields. Maybe he was right.") 

Before he could answer, a wave of pain-and-fear swept over him again, stronger than the first time, and he struggled to maintain some control, not realizing that he was doubled over as if in physical pain himself. Scully kept up the contact, rubbing gently, crooning wordlessly while the two Immortals could only watch helplessly. It was several long minutes later before Mulder sat up, looking pale and a little ill. 

("Jesus... what...?") 

"C'mon," Scully tugged him to his feet. "Let's get you out of here. Captain Bennett? We'll be in touch." 

Mulder let her lead, but paused in the doorway, turning back toward McCormick. 

"Matt? Thank you for trusting me that much. For trusting us. That must have been difficult for you." 

McCormick shrugged. "You're a good man, Mulder. I generally won't out another Immortal without permission but I wanted Fox Mulder, Profiling Sentinel, fully aware of what Miklaus is. People who don't understand frequently get dead trying to handle him. I need that to not happen this time. We need to finish this!" 

* * *

Scully took Mulder across the street where she found a small patch of greenery called Cathedral Park. Not more than thirty feet wide in any direction, with three trees marking the corners of the triangular patch-park, it was surrounded by shrubbery, and made a tiny island of isolation from the bustling traffic and from the hospital itself. 

In the center of the park, there was a bench made of a cool dark green granite. She headed for it, sat down and tugged Mulder down beside her. He used the bench to slow his descent, but sat on the ground, leaning against the bench and against her knee. He rested his head on her thigh and closed his eyes. 

Her hand came down and she gentled him easily, her fingers combing through his hair. He sighed, relaxing a little more. 

("You don't want to go back in there and do the autopsies, do you?") he asked. 

("Not particularly,") she admitted candidly. ("There's nothing subtle about Miklaus.") 

He shuddered. 

("Hey. I don't have to do it. Skinner never told me that I had to do the autopsies, and, like I said, Dr. Morrigan is very skilled. I'm yours first, Mulder. I belong to the FBI only after that.") 

He looked up at her then, and the smile he gave her made her toes curl. He rose up, leaned forward from his knees and kissed her. 

("Hey. Quit changing the subject,") she protested weakly. She ended the kiss with a teasing nibble on his lower lip, then ran her index finger from the spot between his eyebrows down his nose to his mouth, where she lifted the finger, kissed it, then planted the kiss on his lips. ("I don't want you to go back into any hospital until you're better at shielding. I don't like the way this affects you.") 

He closed his eyes and lowered his face into her lap. ("I don't like it, either. I feel... unshelled. I used to have armor. I've always had some awareness of what other people were feeling, but I put up walls, barricades, because it's just too painful. But now... all my armor's gone transparent, porous. I used to be able to handle other's people's pain. But if you hadn't gotten me out of that hospital when you did... well, I wasn't too far from curling up and screaming to try and drown it out...") 

("We're going to have to talk to Blair about this,") she pointed out. ("If he's got an actual technique for creating shielding, I think we're going to need it.") 

("Let's not re-invent the wheel,") he agreed. 

A sharp bark alerted both of them; it was her spirit guide, the dainty little red fox. The grey fox was lying sprawled beside her, but the red fox was pacing back and forth. They looked where the foxes were looking, and saw, through a narrow gap in the shrubbery, that McCormick had emerged from the hospital, and was standing on the front steps looking around, obviously looking for them. 

She climbed to her feet and Scully called out. "Matt! Over here!" 

McCormick heard her, and gestured at them to wait. He retrieved the car, paid the parking fee, and drove around to pick them up. 

"Where to?" he asked when they were settled in the back seat. "I'd offer you once around the park, but I think that wouldn't be worth the sixty seconds it would take." 

Scully smiled. "Probably not. Back to the federal building," she replied. 

* * *

McCormick left them at the employee entrance, and then headed over to Seacouver Homicide. He had no compunctions about leaving the Miklaus investigation to Mulder now; despite the fact that he had been hunting Miklaus, off and on, for most of the man's life, he knew Mulder had a better chance of anticipating Miklaus so they could catch him. He focused his attentions on the Rysher Creek Killer, instead, so he could mollify SAC Rutuska. That case he knew he could get a handle on; if he had ever had a chance to catch Miklaus himself, he would have done it years ago. Now it was all he could do to track him. 

Maybe Mulder would have better luck. 

* * *

Mulder went immediately to the relationships display on the far wall, started at the earliest of this current rampage, the family of six in Cleveland in 1975. There had certainly been deaths before that, but there was no way to explain to a prosecutor that Miklaus had been killing for centuries. Decades would be enough of a challenge. Scully went to the nearest phone, and, while he could hear her voice on the edge of his awareness, he paid no attention. He was  
concentrating on the crime scene photographs. 

As Scully picked up the phone, she only then realized that she did not have cell numbers for Blair or Jim; nor did she have any number for Chazz. She had to look Chazz up in the phone book; when she called, she got the answering machine. Running out of other options, she called Seacouver PD's Homicide Unit, and asked for the partners from Cascade. It took a while, but finally she did get Sandburg on the line. 

The other agents working in the room ignored them both. Everyone had their assigned tasks, and everyone but Mulder and Scully had deadlines to meet. 

The two Guides talked for quite a while; Scully was having a hard time wrapping her mind around the idea that mental shields were that easy to build and control. 

"Trust me on this one, Dana," Blair said calmly. "The easiest way is to draw a circle around the two of you, mentally. Then, with that circle as the equator, visualize a globe of white light between the two of you and everything else. If you're under serious attack, make the whiteness opaque. If it's to be up all the time, it should be the thinnest gossamer. The Guide who wrote about this technique in her journal used the phrase "Fiat Lux!" to activate the shield, to make it solid and opaque. The two of you can use any phrase that works for you." 

"I don't need shielding," she growled. "I'm not perceiving this stuff. He is. He almost got sick in the hospital today because he let what shields he has fall to test McCormick's truthfulness and all the pain and fear of the hospital's atmosphere dropped on him like a load of wet sand." 

Blair nodded. "Easiest thing for him to do then is simply to create his shields transparent to you. Since the two of you are two halves of a single being they may be able to get to him through you, so you should be included. It should not be difficult. But it may take practice." 

She felt Mulder shudder, then, and looked up, worried. He was standing across the room, frozen, staring at the newest information. One of the gofers had posted what they knew about Bennett's family and the car jacking. 

"Thanks, Blair," she said absently, setting the phone aside as she stood up and headed toward her partner. 

"Dana?" Blair stared at the handset he held, and then turned to Jim, who was staring at him. 

"Something's wrong, isn't it?" Jim asked. 

Blair nodded. As one they headed for the door. 

Scully approached Mulder cautiously, careful not to touch him. He was staring at the photograph of the missing child, tears running down his face. 

"What do you see?" Scully whispered as she walked up beside him. 

"It's dark," he said quietly. 

"It's not dark, Mulder." 

"He turned off the lights," Mulder ignored her. "He lit candles, like birthday candles, only bigger. I can kinda see him." 

Scully swallowed a surge of terror. That was Mulder's voice, but the words were not his, the cadences were not his. It was thoroughly disconcerting to hear her partner's normal baritone voice but a child's words. 

( _A child's words... Oh, my God!_ ) 

"He's got somethin' shiny..." 

"Mulder, no!" She tried to distract him with words, but it did not work. ("Fox! Stop it! Look at me!") She moved around in front of him, took his hands. He did not react; his attention was riveted on that photograph of the three- year-old boy. "Mulder!!" 

"It's a knife..." 

She reached up and pinched his ear, hard. He brushed her hand off but his attention was still locked on the photo of little Sebastian Lane. 

"Mommy... I want my mommy..." 

Scully was frantic. Somehow, he was attached to the Lane boy. Whether this was an actual real time bond, or a intense projection of what would certainly be the Lane boy's fate at the hands of  
the Cannibal, she had to break it before he experienced the child's agonizing death. She knew that Mulder could imagine that in all its horrific detail, and she did not want that to happen. 

"No... leave me alone!" the child whimpered. 

Scully wrapped both arms around him, closed her eyes, and visualized the circle of blue-white flame that Blair had described. Then she whispered, "Fiat lux!" 

The ring of flame leaped to life and became a cold white fire raging all around them. 

("Nothing can reach us in here, Mulder - we're alone. Just you and me. Fox, look at me.") 

He shuddered, and sank to his knees. 

She kept her feet, felt him shaking, hugged him close. ("Shh...it's all right. It's over. It's just you and me. It's over. Come back to me...") 

He sobbed then and clutched at her. ("Oh, my God, Scully! He was just a baby...!") 

She held him tightly, crooning wordlessly, stroking his hair. ("I'm here. I'm here. You're not alone... I'm here.") 

Finally he looked up at her. His face was streaked with tears, and all the horrors he had seen were visible in his eyes. 

Scully took a deep breath. "Were you really there," she asked hesitantly, "or were you just projecting?" 

He backed far enough away to sit on his feet on the floor, and held out his left arm for her inspection. The sleeve of his white dress shirt was soaking red with blood. 

"Oh, my God!" She took hold of his wrist and he flinched, grimacing in pain. "What happened?" 

He swayed slightly and braced himself with his right arm. "First cut," he forced the words out past set teeth. "He joints 'em. Like a butcher joints a chicken." 

His shirt was not torn or cut. She ripped his cuff open, not caring where the cufflink flew, and carefully pulled the white cotton fabric away from his arm. She glanced at the vicious cut that completely encircled his elbow, and grimaced, wrapping the fabric back around firmly, hoping to inhibit further blood loss. She looked up, and only then realized that the shield she had built was still in place. She could not even see the room in which they knelt, much less their fellow agents. 

( _I wonder if they can see us?_ ) 

Mulder sagged against her, his head down, panting. 

Scully looked around blindly, realizing only then that she did not have a command to lower the white light barrier. It took her a moment to recall that Blair had assured her that the barrier  
was under her control, and that its properties could be changed by an act of will. She closed her eyes and concentrated on lowering the wall, reversing its growth until it shrunk back to the single line of the original circle. Then she wound that up into a ball and opened her eyes. 

The circle was gone. The other agents were reacting with shock and surprise, standing around the fallen Sentinel and his frantic Guide. The closest man was Walter Skinner. He took one look at Mulder's blood-smeared form and turned to the nearest agent. "Call an ambulance! Now!" 

The agent fled. 

Skinner dropped to kneel beside Scully. "Agent Scully? What happened to him? How could he get hurt in here?" 

She shuddered and turned haunted eyes up to her commanding officer. "Sebastian Lane is being killed even as we speak," she whispered. "First cut is through the elbow..." 

Skinner sucked in an extra lungful of air, horrified. He looked more closely at Mulder, and saw that he seemed to be unconscious, pale, breathing light and fast. 

"Agent Scully? Is he in shock?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"The ambulance will be here momentarily." 

"All right." 

"This is insane, you know." 

She looked up at him. "I have never been more certain of what constitutes physical reality, sir." 

He shivered, unnerved by the look in her eyes. 

* * *

Mulder was unconscious when they arrived at the emergency room. The emergency room doctor was puzzled, but efficient. He quickly determined that the cuts, while deep, proved to not be deep enough to have involved cartilage or tendons, but had involved some major blood vessels. Dr. Jameson called for a vascular surgeon and sent Mulder up for surgery. 

Skinner and Scully waited. Scully briefed her supervisor on what had happened, and he was incredulous but not disbelieving. 

"I believed you and Dr Sandburg when you promised me that Mulder would get better at what he was already the best at," Skinner said slowly, trying to assimilate everything. "But this is  
insane." 

Scully shrugged. "That's the only way I can explain it, sir. He was uninjured when he walked into the room. No one went near him, and he hasn't got a knife. I don't believe he would do this to himself, now. There have certainly been moments in his life when suicide seemed a viable choice. This isn't one of them." 

* * *

Much to Scully's shock and Mulder's satisfaction, after a unit of blood and an initializing dose of IV antibiotics, Mulder was signed out to the care of his own physician the following afternoon. 

"You're kidding!" Scully stared at the doctor. 

He shrugged. "Managed care. You're a physician; if he needs anything else, bring him back to the ER. You can get the scripts filled at the dispensary on the ground floor near the cashier's  
window." 

"He had surgery less than twenty hours ago!" 

"He was under for less than an hour, he woke up without even a trace of difficulty. He's young and healthy, the surgery was clean and simple without complications. We need these beds for sick people. Get him out of here, Dr. Scully." 

* * *

Muttering under her breath, Scully bundled Mulder into the back of Skinner's car. 

"I'm sorry, Scully," Mulder murmured yet again. He was exhausted, and Scully was reasonably sure that he was more than half asleep. 

"I know you are, love," she said softly. "Don't worry about it now... just rest." 

Skinner, from the driver's seat, turned around to study his agents. He had been about to ask for an explanation, but it was obvious that Mulder was falling asleep. "Both of you relax," he advised instead. "It's only ten minutes to the hotel." 

That got Mulder's attention. He tried to sit up. "No, wait \- I want to go back to the Task Force..." 

"Forget it, Mulder!" Scully and Skinner chorused. They traded amused glances, and Skinner turned forward again, and started the car. 

"You're going to bed, and you're going to sleep," Skinner instructed, carefully not looking at them in his rearview mirror as he pulled out of the hospital parking lot and onto the street. 

Mulder slumped against his Guide and let her hold him. "Yessir..." 

He was almost asleep when Skinner stopped the car. "We're here. Pick up your feet." 

Scully waited while Skinner climbed out of the car and made his way around to Mulder's side of the car. 

"C'mon, Mulder. Swing your feet out." 

Mulder obeyed, grumbling. "'S nuthin' but a lousy cut...!" 

"A lousy cut that took a hundred stitches to close!" Scully snapped, her patience wearing thin with worry. She was immediately sorry, but Mulder was so groggy he had not even noticed her outburst. 

Skinner helped him stand and walked along side him toward room 315. Skinner opened the door with a keycard and guided Mulder inside. Scully followed them and realized that Mulder's luggage was here and that the door to the adjoining room was standing open. Smiling faintly, she turned to watch Skinner help Mulder sit down on the nearer of the two queen-size beds in the room. Mulder swayed a little, but steadied himself with one hand. The wounded arm was bandaged, holding the damaged elbow into a ninety-degree angle, and a sling kept the arm braced. 

Skinner stepped back. "Can you manage?" he asked Scully. 

"We'll be fine, sir. Thank you." 

"I'll send someone to pick you up at eight," Skinner said as he headed toward the door. 

"Sir?" 

Skinner turned back; Mulder was staring at him. "Yes?" 

"Sebastian Lane is dead," Mulder said quietly, emotionlessly. Scully dropped to sit beside him, and took his good hand in hers. "I was trying to see through Sebastian's eyes, hoping for some clue about where he might be." His hand tightened on Scully's. "I could see what he saw, hear what he heard... feel what he felt..." Mulder's voice cracked. "I... I guess I was too close. I lost myself. I WAS Sebastian..." 

Skinner was stunned. "My God. What broke the connection?" 

"Scully," Mulder answered. Then he choked back a sob, shuddering. "Miklaus was... angry, sir. Frustrated." Some of the shattered grief faded from his eyes as, for the first time in hours he turned his focus away from the doomed child and back on the perpetrator. "He was really angry at the cops because they foiled his plans. He hasn't been thwarted like this in years... decades, maybe. How could all his planning and experience have been stymied like this so easily? This is the second kill cluster in a row that's gone wrong. He's really, really pissed." There was a long moment of silence. Then he looked up at his commanding officer. "He may take this out on any law enforcement personnel he can find, sir. He prefers to target the family groups we've described. But he's a murderer. He can kill anywhere, anyone, any time. And he'll try for Bennett again... I'm positive of that." 

Skinner nodded slowly. "I'll contact Chief Kendrick and make sure every uniform in the area is warned and that a guard is placed on Captain Bennett." 

"Security guards and such, too; he won't be picky, sir." 

"All right. I'll handle it, Mulder. You get some sleep. You're off duty until after breakfast tomorrow morning. You'll be picked up at eight; you will get a good breakfast. If you show up at the office before nine I will send you back here till one in the afternoon. Have I made myself perfectly clear?" 

"Yes, sir," Mulder said sullenly. "It's only a cut; I think you're both over- reacting." 

"Mulder!" Scully's irritation returned. "It completely encircles your elbow; you needed surgery and a blood transfusion! And you don't want to know what Chazz told me about psychosomatic injuries and hysterical stigmata!" 

He looked away, disturbed with her attitude. 

Scully was not surprised that Mulder fell asleep almost as soon as Skinner left them alone in the hotel room. She pulled off his shoes and socks, jeans and the flannel shirt that fit over the heavy bandage that immobilized his damaged elbow. 

("What are you doing?") he murmured tiredly. 

("Putting you to bed.") 

The brusqueness of her tone disturbed him, and he sat up, frowning, leaning on his good arm. ("Scully? I didn't do it on purpose. I don't like getting hurt.") 

She turned away from him and began to turn down the other bed. 

("What are you doing?") he whispered, his tone suddenly dull. 

She looked up quickly, startled, and saw the animation fading from his eyes as he watched her prepare to sleep in the other bed. ("Hey! Stop that!") She sat down beside him. 

("You're angry with me.") 

("I'm worried about you. I'm not really angry. I know you didn't do this on purpose.") 

He looked away, avoiding her eyes. 

("I don't want to hurt you,") she explained hurriedly. ("If I sleep with you, the least little movement I make is likely to jar that arm.") 

("I don't mind.") His words were so faint she could hardly hear him. 

"I mind!" she snapped aloud. 

He flinched. 

Scully gasped and reached for him. ("Fox, I'm sorry!") 

He pulled her close one-handed and held her tightly, his face buried in her hair. ("I need you so much...") He was sobbing with exhaustion. ("I need to touch you to know you're real...") 

She realized only then that she had not touched him since they had arrived at the hospital. She had used their telepathic link to monitor his condition and his level of consciousness, even during the surgery, but she had not done more than hold his hand briefly since then. 

("I didn't realize you needed touch so badly; I'm sorry. I wasn't withholding anything on purpose, I swear it. I was afraid of betraying us... I was afraid I'd feel too much of your pain and lose control... I was just afraid...! I'm sorry!") She cried on his shoulder. 

("I don't care,") he told her over and over. ("I don't care. You're here, now.") 

The medication was pulling him down into sleep; she could feel him fading. ("It's okay; sleep. I'll be here, just like always. I'm always here. I'm always with you. Relax, now. You're exhausted... sleep...") 

He lay back on the bed with a sigh. ("Stay with me...") 

("Always.") 

* * *

The next morning when they heard a knock at the door, they were dressed and ready. They were surprised to see Matt McCormick. 

"Good morning," he said cheerily. He paused at the look of surprise on Scully's face. "Rutuska decided that he would rather dispense with my services... seems like they've got a good line on the _ordinary_ serial from one of the beat cops. Can I interest you in breakfast?" 

"Don't be disgusting," Mulder glared at him as he stalked past the Immortal. 

McCormick stared after him. "What's with your partner, Agent Scully?" he asked as she joined him on the sidewalk. 

"Not enough sleep, no coffee yet, painkillers that don't work well enough and antibiotics that make eating the last thing you would want to do." 

McCormick blinked. "Good thing I already ate," he commented as he joined Mulder on the sidewalk outside their room. 

Mulder stared at him. "What are you thinking, Matt?" 

"I want to know if you saw or heard anything that could be a clue to where Miklaus was last night." 

Mulder shuddered, and cradled his wounded arm against his body. 

"I appreciate the horror of it, Mulder, believe me," McCormick said gently. "I'm a profiler, too. But if we don't catch him, Sebastian Lane won't be his last victim." 

Scully frowned. "Come back inside, here," she suggested. 

Mulder turned to look at her. ("What?") 

She shrugged. ("If he's going to play inquisition to get you to cough up details you don't realize you have, I prefer the privacy of our rooms. It's not something I want to do in the back seat of a car or under the eyes of the Task Force!") 

Mulder glanced at McCormick. ("You don't mind betraying what we are to him?") 

("He already knows most of it,") she pointed out. ("He's your friend; you know him far better than I do. Is he honorable enough to trust? We know his secret, so we have that much leverage, if we need it.") 

("He's a good man,") Mulder nodded. ("I trust him. I can't trust him for you.") 

("I trust you. If you trust him that's enough for me, too,") she smiled. Then her smile faded. ("After all, you're the one who is going to be laying himself bare. I'm just going to keep a much  
tighter rein on you this time. I don't like you going so deep you get hurt!") 

Mulder grinned wanly. ("I'll be careful.") Then he shuddered and looked away, the smile disappearing. ("Sebastian's dead. If I link to Miklaus maybe I can get the information we need.") 

"First let's try just remembering." She led him back inside the hotel room. 

McCormick followed the pair, shaking his head. "It's going to take me a while to get used to the idea that the two of you can have an entire conversation while I'm inhaling between sentences." 

Mulder and Scully traded enigmatic expressions, and McCormick swore under his breath. "I can see I'm going to want to slap both of you silly before this session is over..." 

Scully stopped dead, planting herself between the Immortal and her Sentinel. 

("Got your back,") Mulder teased. 

She ignored him. "How many people have you killed, Agent McCormick?" she growled. 

He was startled by the question. "I'm sure I don't know," he said heavily, his accent thickening a bit. "I was never one for keepin' score, and I've fought in several wars." 

"One on one, duels." 

"I don't keep score, Agent Scully." 

"One? Two? Two dozen?" 

"I'm over eight hundred years old, Agent Scully, and I've fought in several wars," he said quietly. "The number must be close to two hundred. It's a rare decade that I don't fight at least one duel." 

"Look me in the eye and tell me that your entire purpose here isn't to locate and kill Miklaus." 

He sighed. "Agent Scully..." 

"Answer me." 

"What could be the purpose of putting him in jail?" he asked. "Sentence him to life without parole and in fifty or sixty or seventy years he'll be released because they will decide that he's been misidentified. After all, he'll still look 35; he couldn't possibly be a man sentenced to life sixty years ago...! And when he gets out, he will go on a spree, and more people will die. If we find him now, and I can defeat him, it'll all be over. The case may or may not be closed," he admitted. "But the children will stop dying." 

"Can you beat him?" Mulder asked quietly. 

McCormick looked past Scully to meet his eyes squarely. "I don't know," he admitted. "The odds are in my favor because I train, and I practice against swordmasters. He picks out the most helpless to victimize. I doubt he trains. So I have an advantage in a fair fight." 

"Will he fight fair?" 

McCormick smiled grimly. "Probably not. Would you be my second?" 

"I'd be honored," Mulder said instantly. "That's not part of the Game, though, is it?" 

"No," McCormick admitted. "But I will play fair. If he kills me fairly, you can arrest him for my murder, too. Other Immortals will handle him, eventually, and it might happen while he's inside. If he cheats..." 

"I'll shoot him and hold him for you," Mulder offered. 

McCormick nodded. "Thank you, Mulder. I couldn't face losing and letting him go free to continue, but I can't take another Immortal to a duel. If he can take my Quickening, he deserves it, as long as he pays for the mortals he's butchered." 

"He'll pay," Mulder promised. 

It took them a while to arrange things to everyone's satisfaction. They finally settled Mulder on the floor, leaning against the bed. Scully sat on the bed, knees spread to cradle Mulder between  
them, her hands resting on his shoulders. McCormick sat in the room's single chair just to the right of Mulder's line-of-sight. 

"Okay. You have to verbalize this stuff, Mulder, or I'll be getting it second-hand from Scully. Can you talk about what you saw?" 

"I don't know," he admitted. "You may have to remind me." 

"I'm just glad you're doped to the eyeballs," Scully commented. "It's unlikely you'll be able to sink as far into the experience as you did yesterday." 

Mulder shuddered. "Not an experience I want to repeat," he agreed, his tone hollow. Then he inhaled deeply and closed his eyes, falling into his self-taught profiler's trance easily. "It was a vacant building," he reported almost at once, his tone expressionless. "Filthy with dust and rat droppings, dirty windows high on the walls that are so dirty they actually filter the light. Windows face south I think because it was late afternoon and light was slanting in. It was the only available light." 

"Very good," McCormick said softly. "What did the air smell like?" 

Mulder's eyes stayed closed. "Dust. Decay. Blood..." 

"No. Fainter scents. Underlying scents. Did it smell like the mountains or the sea?" 

There was a long pause. Scully's fingers continued their slow, mesmerizing motion through his hair, but she said nothing, letting him hunt for the information he needed. 

"Mountains," was the eventual answer. "Stone. Rock dust. Pines... cedars... No sea salt tang at all." 

"Okay. Abandoned storage facility on the east side of town, facing south. What did you hear outside?" 

Scully watched as McCormick worked over a county map, narrowing their focus with each set of responses that he got from Mulder. 

Finally, Mulder swayed under her hands, and she checked her watch. "Time out," she said quietly. 

McCormick had been about to ask another question. "What?" 

"He needs a break. You've been at this for two hours, and he never even got breakfast." 

"Neither did you," Mulder mumbled. He was slumped against her right knee, cradling his immobilized arm against his body. 

"God, I'm sorry," McCormick was shocked at his own thoughtlessness. "Relax. I'll go order in some food and call in." 

"Good," Scully nodded. "Skinner was expecting us at the office. I wonder why he didn't call when we didn't show up?" 

"Maybe he was hoping you were sleeping. I'll explain." He stood up and went into the adjoining room to use the phone there. 

("How are you doing?") 

He shivered. ("Pretty good, actually. Memories are easier to handle than real-time linkage.") 

("That does make sense. It's time for some of your meds, but I think we'll hold off until the food comes.") 

("Thanks.") 

She pulled the bedspread off the bed and wrapped him in it. 

("...Scully...") he protested faintly. 

("You're cold. You're still depleted from your captivity, more so from the stress of this case... and then even more by this injury. If you get chilled you're going to get sick; your immune system can't be running at anywhere near normal efficiency.") 

He nestled more snugly against her knee. ("Make me too comfortable here and I'll fall asleep on you.") 

("That's all right. Take a nap if you like.") 

He did not answer her directly, but struggled to stand up. He pushed the bedspread off with visible reluctance, and walked tiredly into the bathroom. Scully waited for him. When he came back out, he lay down on the bed, on top of the blankets. She arranged a pillow under his injured arm and threw the bedspread over him and tucked him in. He smiled sleepily at her, but then fell asleep so quickly that Scully was worried. 

When McCormick came back, he stopped dead at the sight of the two of them on the bed. "Agent Scully?" 

She was sitting beside her partner, her hip and thigh warm against his back. She smiled reassuringly up at the Immortal. "He's okay. He's just exhausted. What say we let him nap until the food comes?" 

McCormick nodded. "Good idea. We have to use him. We don't have to use him up." 

"I wouldn't allow you to." 

He grinned at her. "I explained what we're doing to Skinner. He's sending someone we know over with food and the latest forensics report. He doesn't think there's anything in the report that you don't already know, but it never hurts to check." 

She nodded. "How far have you narrowed the search grid?" she asked. 

"From the entire Metro area, we're down to a ten by fifteen block industrial zone off Seattle Street, east of Ooloona Creek," he grinned at her humorlessly. "Skinner has unmarked local PD and Bureau cars casing the boundaries of the area gingerly. We don't want him to run; we'll have to hunt him down again if that happens." 

She nodded. "And the only way we'll pick up his trail again is if... when he kills again." 

"Which we don't want to risk," he agreed. 

* * *

Much to their surprise, the food was delivered by Captain Bennett, whose eyes held such pain and mute appeal that they explained what they were doing. Mulder, revived somewhat by food and caffeine and almost a full hour of sleep, ran over all the clues they had unearthed for him. 

"I was born and raised here," Bennett grumbled. "You should've called me in on this." 

"We didn't know." 

"You fibbies need better liaison with local PD," he advised. "It's our home territory; we know it better than you can." 

Mulder nodded, sipping at his coffee. "You're probably right. But we get territorial, too." 

Scully looked up, startled. Blair had waxed eloquent about Jim's territorial imperatives: he claimed the City of Cascade, as far outside it as he could reach, and total ownership of Blair. Mulder had never overtly exhibited anything she could really label as 'territoriality.' He was firmly devoted to saving the entire planet from the Consortium and the alien invaders. 

( _But then, on the other hand, any time anyone looks sideways at me, he's between us... That matches how Jim acts about Blair._ ) She smiled slowly. ( _The entire planet is a much larger territory, but it seems to be the same imperative._ ) 

She decided their overt relationship as Sentinel and Guide was too new and fragile for her to test him on this. But in the back of her mind she started contemplating ways to test and, yes, to tease him. 

Mulder and McCormick sat calmly, finishing off the hoagies that Bennett had brought, discussing Immortal combat strategies. Mulder had fenced in college; McCormick had a low opinion of the entire concept of formalized modern competitive fencing. 

While Mulder and McCormick debated fighting strategies, and Scully watched her partner to see that he actually ate most of the steak hoagie, Captain Bennett was studying the map, gnawing on his thumb. 

"I think I know where he is," he announced suddenly. 

All three FBI agents turned to stare at him. 

"Where?" Mulder asked, craning his neck to see the map. 

Bennett's hand came down to the northwest of the penciled-in box that McCormick had sketched in earlier. 

"This is an abandoned furniture factory on Margay Street. Before it folded eighteen months ago, they made pinewood hope chests with cedar inserts. The place was stripped when the company went under. There's nothing else on the street for more than a mile in either direction, but it gets steady traffic because it is the most direct route between Rathburn and Ingham Colleges and the Delftwood Mall. See?" 

"Sounds promising," Mulder murmured. 

Bennett nodded. "It's set back from the road far enough that you could scream and not be heard by passing traffic." 

"Let's try it," Mulder suggested. 

McCormick stood up and stretched. "Just the three of us." 

"I'm coming!" Bennett flared. 

"You're supposed to be on compassionate leave," McCormick growled. 

"I'm Immortal, too. Why are you taking them?" 

"Because you're Immortal, too," McCormick said quietly, meeting Bennett's rage with ancient calm. "Taking you along violates the Rules. Having mortals as seconds doesn't." 

"Doesn't? Or doesn't as dramatically?" Scully asked. 

McCormick sighed. "Having another Immortal there is against the Rules. Having mortals there is considered stupid, and unwise, but it doesn't break the Rules." 

"Because we don't know how to kill him?" Mulder was curious. 

McCormick shrugged. "You could behead him, and he would be dead," was his reply. "His Quickening would be lost. I think it's more that most Immortals don't tell anyone about what we are. If a mortal takes one of us down, they are less likely to behead us, even if they understand, because, after all, it's not easy to do." He took a deep breath. "Give us a half hour head start, Bennett. Then call Skinner and get us some back-up. If I lose, Mulder and Scully will have their hands full." 

Bennett started to argue, caught the glint of steel in McCormick's eye, and closed his mouth. 

They took McCormick's car. 

* * *

The warehouse was huge; it covered about fifteen acres of ground, and was shaped like an ell. Scully sighed. "That's going to take us a long time to search...I hope we aren't wasting our time here." 

But the moment he caught sight of it, Mulder stiffened. "That's the place." 

McCormick drove past it and found a distant driveway that looped around behind the building. Half a mile away, he parked. 

"I can't sneak up on him," McCormick explained. You two can. Once he feels my Kenning, he'll know another Immortal is out here, and he'll run." He got out of the car and walked around to open the trunk. In a duffle bag there he found three headset radios. He passed one to each of them. "Here. I know you don't need 'em to talk to one another, but you do need 'em to talk to me. See if you can pin him down somewhere so he won't escape. I'll challenge him. If he accepts, we fight. If he doesn't, we bust him. Sound good?" 

Mulder nodded. "Yeah. It gives him the illusion of control that should allow him to make a good, unpressured decision. Who knows, Matt? Maybe he's been running from you all these years because he's terrified of you." 

McCormick snorted in disgust. 

* * *

Reluctantly, Mulder and Scully separated. They were swiftly out of telepathy range. Alone except for the hum of her life force underlying every breath he took, Mulder sauntered around the warehouse, pausing to look at the wildflowers growing up through the pavement. 

This was the first time he had been physically separated from Scully since he had been rescued. He felt uncertain, lacking self-confidence. He felt himself beginning to breathe a little faster, and forced himself to slow his respirations down, to still the tiny seed of panic he felt growing. 

( _I can do this,_ ) he said to himself. ( _I can't live my life chained to her side. I have to learn to do this..._ ) 

So much of his attention was focused on that inner battle that he almost forgot what he was there to do, and he jumped, startled, when a harsh voice snarled at him from a shadow. 

"Stop there." 

He froze, shocked, and then looked up hesitantly. "Yes? Who's there?" 

A ragged figure emerged from the building. Miklaus was dirty and reeked of body odor and urine. Everything about him was dirty, brownish gray except the pure silversteel glimmer of the sword in his left hand. 

Desperately, Mulder sent that visual to Scully, felt her react to it. 

"Hi," he said meekly. "I'm sorry if I bothered you. I'm Martin Mulder; I'm a Professor of Botany at Ingham College. I'm scouting this location for a student project on wildflowers in brownfields. I'm sorry if I disturbed you," he told the other man, blinking, trying to appear harmless. 

Hesitantly, wary as a feral dog, Miklaus approached. He did not come close enough to touch Mulder with the sword, but he circled Mulder twice, while Mulder stayed still and tried to watch him. 

"Why are you here?" 

"I explained that. One of my classes is on the natural reclamation of abandoned industrial space by wild plants. The students need a laboratory space, and I was scouting this area to see if it would be appropriate." 

"Who do you talk to?" The question was aimed at the headset. 

Mulder's good hand went to it. "This is just a recorder. For my notes. I can't carry a notebook and write with my arm like this." 

"What happened to your arm?" 

Mulder sighed and shifted his feet. "I fell off my bike, and hit a plate glass window with my elbow. It's cut up some." 

Miklaus licked his lips. "Lots o' blood?" 

Mulder fought down nausea at the expression on Miklaus's face. "Yeah, there was. But they just stitched me up, and I'm good to go." 

* * *

Scully froze when the image slammed into her awareness. A bum, with long straggly hair and a long-ago broken nose, grimy clothing, the stench of filthiness... and a meter of perfectly clean steel in his left hand. 

( _Oh, my God..._ ) Then she remembered the radio. "Matt! Mulder's found Miklaus!" 

"Where?!" 

"I can't tell." She could feel Mulder's tension, knew even without being able to hear the words that Mulder had to be scamming the Immortal murderer with every ounce of energy he had, every scrap of creativity he could summon. She was hesitant to send to him, for fear of distracting him. 

"Dammit, Agent Scully, Mulder's no match for him! Where are they?! Mulder! Say something!" 

There was no answer, and that was when Scully realized that although she was hearing McCormick, and he was plainly hearing her, neither of them seemed to be getting through to Mulder's radio, nor were they getting transmissions from him. They should be able to hear what he was saying to Miklaus. It was not until then that she realized that they had never tested the radios; they had been preoccupied with the strangeness of an Immortal duel that they had forgotten that most basic of preparations. Mulder's was not working; it might be a malfunction as simple as a dead battery. But it was too late to do anything about it, now. 

Scully stopped and closed her eyes. Delicately, feeling as if she was trying to thread a needle with a sledge hammer, she created the visual of a partially folded road map, added the sensation of a query, and showed it to her Sentinel. 

( _I hope this is working..._ ) she fretted. This was all so new to her, and it annoyed her no end that she did not know how to use their connection any better. 

Suddenly, with such strength that she staggered slightly, she got a visual from Mulder that sent an ice cold drench down through her. Miklaus was so close to Mulder that he could feel the foul breath on his face, see the green teeth. Behind him, the sun was showing over the roof of the building. 

And she could feel the pain. Tearing, hot, red pain. 

"North side of the building. Outside. Hurry! He's got Mulder!" She was running, herself, without ever having felt herself start to move. 

* * *

Mulder was on his knees, and he did not know why. He looked up, and saw Miklaus studying him. The tip of the sword moved, pinked Mulder's throat right under his chin. The point lifted, and he tried to move above it, to keep from being cut, but he could not get high enough; his hand would not come up off the ground. The sword flicked away, leaving a shallow cut that began to bleed at once. Freed, he looked down at his left hand. It was pinned to the ground  
with a stag-hilted dagger that Mulder had never seen. 

( _How did that happen?_ ) he wondered dazedly. ( _When did that happen?_ ) He reached for it, to pull it free. 

A hand grabbed at his hair, yanked his head back. A heavily booted foot slammed his free hand to the ground. Miklaus's weight came down on his wrist. He felt the bones break under Miklaus's boot, and he gasped in pain. But he could not pull free. Miklaus's sword slid under the strap that held his sling and cut it. The sling fell away. The blade came back, started slicing at the bandaging. 

Mulder closed his eyes. With both hands pinned to the ground, the only weapons he had now were his feet and his brain. But the only way he could use his feet would have meant surrendering and going on his belly. He refused to do that. ( _And I still couldn't reach him... I'm not a contortionist!_ ) 

The sword sliced into his arm, vertically from his shoulder almost down to his elbow. He shuddered as Miklaus let go of his hair and dipped his fingers into the freshly flowing blood. The blood-stained hand dangled itself in front of his face for a moment, and then Miklaus daubed the blood on Mulder's forehead and cheeks. He tapped at Mulder's tightly-closed mouth. 

"Try it," the ancient voice grated. "You'll like it." 

Mulder closed his eyes. ( _Scully better find me soon..._ ) 

An unmistakable slurp drew his attention, and he looked up. Miklaus was licking and sucking the blood off his fingers. 

( _My blood..._ ) Mulder shuddered. 

Then the unmistakable frisson of hum/buzz that meant that another Immortal was approaching distracted him from his own pain and fear. 

( _Oh, thank God; that's Matt..._ ) 

* * *

Scully was running; the building was huge, and she had been a long way from the door. She was shocked when she heard gunfire. 

"Matt? Is that you?" 

"No! Mulder?" McCormick was out breath, still running. 

If it was not McCormick firing, or herself, the only other choice was Mulder, and that was terrifying, because the only thing she was getting from Mulder was pain and trapped helplessness. He had not fired a weapon. 

( _If Miklaus has his weapon, was he shooting at Mulder?_ ) But she knew that was not happening; Mulder was in pain, yes, but there was no sensation of impact, no increase in the pain that correlated with the shots. 

Suddenly she could feel his terror and his pain and smell his blood, hear him trying to shout. 

("Ray! Captain Bennett! Don't! Matthew! Look out!") 

"Mulder?!" Scully finally made it to the corner and whipped around it, her Sig out in front of her, ready to defend the helpless. 

What she saw froze her in her tracks. 

Mulder was on his knees, his left hand pinned to the ground with a knife. The bandage around his previous wound hung in tatters off his arm, soaked with fresh blood. More blood smeared his face and throat. He crouched there, his back to her, fruitlessly trying to get the dagger out of his hand. But his other hand was not working, either. 

His pain sleeted through her awareness, and she dashed to his side. 

A few feet beyond where Mulder knelt, Bennett was standing over a bloody pile of rags that could only be Miklaus. As she watched, Bennett bent down and picked up a sword that had fallen beside the body. 

"Scully!" 

She looked beyond, to see Matthew McCormick struggling to his feet, his shirt and jacket bloodstained. 

"Scully, stop him!" McCormick shouted. "Bennett, don't do it!!" 

She turned her attention back, but then Mulder moaned and wilted a little. She dropped to kneel beside him. Close enough, finally, to get a good look at him, she could see that while his left hand was pinned to the ground with a large dagger, his right wrist looked broken. His left shoulder and upper arm were soaked with blood. The blood on his face and throat was fresh, but she could see no open wounds. 

"My God... hold still, Mulder." She took hold of the dagger's hilt and began working it out of the ground. Inevitably, it had to move against his flesh, and he doubled over in pain, moaned quietly. "Shh... I'll make it better... just hang on a moment..." 

("It hurts, Scully... God, it hurts...") 

"I know it does. Wait till I get you free." 

("Miklaus?") 

"Looks like Bennett shot him. It's over." 

Mulder stiffened, straightened just as she pulled the dagger free. ("Shot him? That won't kill him!") 

A roar drew their attention; they both looked up, shocked. 

Miklaus came up off the ground with yet another blade, this one a short sword. He came straight at Bennett, but Bennett was already bringing the blade he held down to sever Miklaus's neck. 

Scully could not process this; her Sentinel was bleeding and her hands were busy wrapping the scraps of his bandages and his shirt around the wound. 

The glimmering silver blade severed Miklaus's head in a flash of light and the body slumped to the ground, coming to land on the ground less than a yard from where Mulder crouched. 

The world seemed to hold its breath for a long moment. 

The Quickening began slowly as fingers of dim power snaked their way off the body, hunted a bit, and then homed in on Bennett. The Sentinel and Guide watched, transfixed, as more and more of them emerged, each brighter than the one before, ribbons of living lightning slamming into the bewildered police Captain with staggering force, driving him to his knees. 

But it was Mulder who screamed. 

Scully was kneeling beside him, aware that he was in pain. There was nothing puzzling about that: he was wounded, and had a broken wrist. But when the first blow struck Bennett, it was  
Mulder who crumbled under it. He slumped against Scully and tried to bury his head against her body. She dropped her arms around him, held him close. 

He kept screaming. 

When she tried to talk to him, she could not get through to him. Agony was a wall between them, isolating him from her solace, her from her role. He was rigid, resisting all her efforts to comfort him, to reach him. She tried to raise the barrier of light, but her concentration was shattered by his distress, and she could not do it. 

He kept screaming. 

She never knew how long the nightmare of the Quickening went on. When it ended, the wall between herself and Mulder dissolved and he went utterly limp against her. The screaming finally stopped, and she found the silence terrifying. 

("Mulder? Fox, speak to me.") 

But there was no answer. Her hands went to his throat, to peel an eyelid back and check for signs of life. 

"Agent Scully?" 

She looked up blindly; it was Matt McCormick. Bloodied and dirty, his eyes wild, he was standing over her with a Sig Sauer handgun in his left hand and Micklaus's sword in his right. 

"Scully? Is he all right?" 

"No," she said flatly. "He's screamed all the way through that light show, and when it ended, he collapsed. I can't wake him." 

McCormick straightened. "I'll call you an ambulance." He started to back up a few steps, but she stopped him. 

"No. It'll take too long. Just help me get him into the car." 

"Okay. Hang on a second." McCormick turned to study the other Immortal. "Bennett? Ray, sit up. You aren't hurt." 

Slowly, Bennett looked up at the old Immortal. 

"Is... Is..." He swallowed dryly. "Was that typical?" 

McCormick shrugged. "There is no such thing as a 'typical Quickening'. Look inside yourself for a moment. Any voices clamoring at you?" 

Bennett shuddered. "Not any more. It was deafening there for a while, though. Terrified women, furious men, screaming children..." He swallowed. "Lots of children..." 

"Those were Miklaus's memories, Bennett; not truly their voices, just the memory of their voices." 

Bennett shuddered, but climbed to his feet and walked, slowly to stand beside the FBI agents. "Is he okay?" 

"I'll get the car," McCormick told Scully and he took off running. 

"Hurry!" Scully shouted after him. Then she looked up at Bennett. "I don't know if he's all right," she admitted. "He's unconscious. He screamed all the way through the Quickening. I think he was hearing the same screaming you were..." 

Bennett nodded thoughtfully. "He's gotta be a little fragile. He lost an awful lot of blood." 

"And he should have still been out on sick leave when he got here," Scully agreed sadly. "He's breathing all right; I think this is a mental or psychic trauma rather than a physical one. You heard voices screaming, right?" 

Bennett nodded slowly. "Yeah. Lots of 'em. Dozens... hundreds..." 

"Well, Mulder's an empath," she explained, totally aware of the incongruity of Dana Scully explaining, and believing, even the possibility of the existence of Sentinels. "Even before his Sentinel awareness was awakened, he could extrapolate how people felt, thought and reacted by the actions they took. Now..." her voice trailed off for a moment, then returned, strengthened. "Now he probably felt all the pain and terror of all those dozens or hundreds of people. Felt it physically, as if it was his own pain, his own terror." 

She realized as the words formed that this was exactly what had happened, and the knot of terror in her throat loosened a little. If it was some kind of psychic shock, it would hopefully wear off when he was warm and safe. 

McCormick left Bennett behind to interact with his own police department regarding the body. He had Bennett help get Mulder into the car; Mulder was still unconscious, and the amount of  
blood he was losing from that slash down his upper arm continued to worry her. Scully slid into the back seat beside her partner and helped McCormick strap Mulder in. Then he floored the car and smoked the tires getting them out of there and onto the main roads so they could make decent time to the hospital. 

Mulder was still unconscious when McCormick's summons brought out a couple of orderlies with a gurney, and they got him out of the car and into a treatment room. McCormick waited until they had him settled. 

"I'm going back to the crime scene, Scully. Bennet's going to need some help explaining it. If you need me, you'll have to call from a pay phone." 

She turned, puzzled, keeping one hand on her partner while the admitting nurse took his vital signs down for the beginning of the history. "Why?" 

He shook his head, smiling grimly. "Your cell phone is almost certainly fried. So is his, and Bennett's. Mine was in the car, so it's safe." 

Scully just shook her head wearily thinking of yet another set of expense reports that included two cell phones. 

"Miss? We need a history, here. Can you tell us what happened to your friend?" 

Scully glanced at the young resident, and stifled a smile. "Thanks, Matt. I'll call the Task Force when we're done, here. Someone will come and pick us up." 

He nodded. "Take care of him," he instructed. 

"Count on it." 

McCormick lifted a hand and backed out beyond the curtain. Scully turned back to the young resident and started reciting the pertinent data. She did not try to explain Sentinels, Guides, bondmates or Immortals. She just told them that there had been a struggle with a multiple murderer; the suspect had done significant damage to Mulder who had been the first officer attacked. 

All the while they talked, her left hand held Mulder's, and her right hand stroked lightly up his undamaged left forearm. 

"Thank you, Agent Scully. We'll have someone in here to look at that arm directly." 

"Thank you." 

("...Scully...?") So faint it was only a whisper in her mind, it was still unmistakably Mulder. 

("I'm here,") she assured him, bending to hug him lightly. ("How do you feel?") 

("...hurt...") 

("Yes, you got hurt. Again. You're at the Emergency Room at Powers. Again. You're going to get poked and prodded and stuck and x-rayed and stitched again. Then we're going back on leave. What do you think about spending a couple of weeks on a black sand beach in Hawaii?" 

He did not answer her. Instead, he began to tremble. 

("Mulder? What's wrong?") 

("...too many people...") he whimpered. ("...too many...") 

He was starting to curl up into a tight fetal ball. She placed her hands on either side of his face and gently turned his head to face her. 

"Look at me," she said intensely. "Look. At. Me!" 

He faced her, but his eyes were glazed and unfocused. ("...who...?") 

That terrified her. ("I am Dana Scully. You are Fox Mulder.") 

There was a flicker of awareness in his eyes. ("Scully...") he whispered, relief clear in his tone. 

("Yes, me. Say your name.") 

("You're Scully.") 

("Right. Say your name.") 

He blinked. ("Name?") 

("Say. Your. Name.") 

He opened his mouth and then closed it. The grey fox that was his spirit guide walked up the edge of the bed and settled down beside him. The fox stared intently into Mulder's eyes, and he sighed. The fox touched his nose to Mulder's, then rested his chin on Mulder's throat, closing his eyes. 

It was only then that Scully realized that the grey fox and her Fox had eyes that were the exact same shade of hazel. 

("Fox?") 

The Sentinel and his spirit guide sighed in unison, and Mulder slowly let himself relax. 

("Mulder? Are you okay, now?") 

He nodded, and rolled his head over to study her expression. She relaxed when she saw the clear recognition in his eyes. ("God, that was awful...") he breathed. 

("Don't think about it now,") she advised. Neither of them noticed that the grey fox was gone. 

"Agent Scully?" 

She looked up and saw the same senior resident who had stitched up Mulder's elbow. Dr. Hengerer looked quite frazzled, and Scully bit her lip. 

"Doctor? Please tell me you've been home at least once since we saw you last." 

Leo Hengerer grinned at the petite Fed who had been so insufferable about how he had treated her partner. "Yes, Dr. Scully. I went home, had a real dinner and slept with my wife. Do I pass? You going to let me touch him?" 

She ostentatiously moved half a step to one side, so Hengerer could see Mulder. She did not surrender her touch on her partner, though. 

"Hi, Doc." Mulder's voice was barely there. 

"Hello, Agent Mulder. So, what did you do to ruin all that good work I put into you yesterday?" 

"Caught the bad guy." 

Hengerer nodded. "Good. Now let's take a look at the damage, here..." 

* * *

It took far longer to escape the hospital this time. The sword cut on Mulder's upper arm was worse than the earlier one around his elbow; it required three layers of stitches, and most of the stitches in his elbow had to be re-done. He was whisked away into surgery as soon as Dr. Hengerer got a good look at his injuries. He had received a unit of blood as a precaution when they repaired his elbow the first time; this time he needed two. While he was under the anesthetic, they x-rayed his left wrist, diagnosed transverse fractures of both the radius and ulna, set the bones, put a temporary splint on it. 

Because the dagger had gone completely through his right palm, it was x-rayed from every possible angle. It was most thoroughly cleaned, something the doctors considered imperative when Scully admitted that the hand had been pinned to the earth. She was glad he was under anesthetic for the process; it even looked painful. 

When the surgery was done, and he had been released from recovery, Scully was so tired she felt like a walking corpse, herself. She sat with him while they evaluated his hand for muscle and tendon damage. Although the x-rays had shown that there were no broken bones, they made Mulder prove that his range of motion and dexterity in the hand were unimpaired. The exercises made the bleeding start again, albeit slowly, and the pain made Mulder snap at the doctor. That made Scully even more protective, and she snarled when they tried to admit Mulder. 

("You were shocked when they wouldn't admit me last time; today you're snarling because they want to?") 

("We're both too tired to maintain a shield, here, and you can't handle the pain and fear of this many patients hammering at your mind,") she growled at him. ("I want to get you back to Chazz's ASAP.") 

He sighed. ("God, do I want to be there...!") He was so fried that he did not even flinch when yet another needle plunged into his arm. 

"All right, Agent Mulder. Your luck is holding; there's no muscle or tendon damage to your hand, and no broken bones. That's your tetanus booster. That's as good as you're getting," Hengerer stepped back and disposed of the syringe in the sharps box. He gave Scully the scrip for more antibiotics. "Get him out of here, Agent Scully; he's cluttering up this ER. Cast room is down that hall. Use the wheelchair; he's mighty wobbly." 

Scully helped Mulder get dressed again, and took him to the cast room. They waited there for more time than he could estimate, then a harried first-year resident came in, glanced at the x-ray, and grabbed the stack of supplies. 

("Let the kid do his job, Scully,") Mulder warned her when he felt her gearing up to snap at the young man. ("Any moron can do casting; he's on someone's shit list already. Just let him get  
done with it. It isn't rocket science.") 

Once the cast was done, she ordered Mulder back into the wheelchair and took him out to the waiting room. She parked Mulder near the exit doors, and studied her partner. He was leaning against the wall, his eyes closed. 

("Don't go to sleep.") 

("I'm exhausted...") 

("Just hang on a little while. I'm going to call for a ride.") 

("Better hurry.") 

She hurried toward the phone bank. At the sound of her heels clicking on the tile floor, he opened his eyes to watch her. He frowned. ("Scully? Cell phones?") 

She kept going. ("I tried 'em, but Matt was right. The lightning show fried 'em.") 

He relaxed again, closing his eyes. ("Skinner'll have a fit.") Then he shuddered, hunching his shoulders, hugging himself for comfort. What she remembered as a dramatic light show he remembered as a short stop in the waiting room at the entrance to Hell. 

("Hey. I told you not to think about that stuff,") she admonished him. 

("You brought it up,") he pointed out, trying to sound as normal as possible. 

("Never mind that. And Skinner's just glad you weren't more badly hurt, Mulder. He called three times while we were here, and he said he'd come pick us up.") 

("The Boss is playing chauffeur? How you rate!") 

("Not me,") she sent him a grin. ("Matt and Bennett got back a couple of hours ago. They've been polishing up a halo for you; the sainthood has to be co-signed by the Pope, so it'll take a couple of weeks.") 

He lifted his head and stared across the room at her. ("You're kidding, right?") 

("Nope.") 

("Damn...") 

He did not exactly fall asleep, but he drowsed exhaustedly against the wall. He had time, early on, to be happy that Scully had had the foresight to set the brakes on the wheelchair; that mean it was not going to slide out from underneath him and dump him on the floor. Echoes of the Quickening ebbed and surged, and he expended a lot of energy fighting it down. 

"Agent Mulder?" 

Groggy, a little confused about where he was and why he felt so wretched, Mulder looked up and saw Skinner looking down at him. He tried to scramble to his feet, and could not find them. He nearly fell backward, but Skinner caught him by both wrists. 

The tug on the freshly-set bones under the still-damp cast wrung a cry of pain from him. Startled, Skinner let go, and Mulder went down. He hit the floor hard and just curled up around the cast, fighting not to cry. 

("Mulder? Mulder, it's all right... I'm right here...") 

He did not answer her, and she glanced worriedly up at Skinner, then back down at her partner. 

("Mulder? Are you all right?") 

("Leave me alone... all of you... please... just leave me alone...") 

That agonized whimper terrified Scully, and she knelt at his side, tried to roll him a little onto his back so she could see his face. ("Mulder? Fox, it's me...") 

He shivered, and leaned into her hands a little, trying to strengthen the contact. ("Dana...? Dana, make 'em leave me alone? I'm so tired I'm sick, and no one will fuckin' leave me alone!") He moved a little, and moaned as he flinched away from the pain. ("And it hurts so much... I just want it to stop, Dana! I just need it to stop!") 

He stopped vocalizing then, but Scully could see his memories surfacing: days uncounted and weeks untold of pain and darkness, with no hope and the heart-deep grief of knowing that everyone he loved was lost to him. Over it all, making it worse, was the pounding weight of all the pain and grief of the population of the hospital. Scully took a deep breath and built a barrier around him. Then she looked up at Skinner. 

"Would you get Dr Hengerer for me? Tell him I need a week's worth of injectable Valium and a dozen syringes. I'd get it myself, but if I let go of him, I'm going to lose him. He just hit the end of his rope." 

"I'm sorry, Agent Scully." Skinner looked extremely upset. 

"Not your fault, sir. He was just more damaged than we knew." 

"Nick and Chazz are out in the car, waiting for us," Skinner offered. 

"Good," she nodded. "That's going to help. Now go get that Valium, will you? I want to knock him out before he retreats all the way back to twelve years old and catatonic." 

Skinner flinched, then turned away and hurried inside on his mission. 

Dr Hengerer required more information and Scully gave him a censored history to justify the scrip for a sedative. When a nurse brought it to her, Scully took the syringe and did the injection herself. She watched as Mulder fought the drug every step of the way, but finally had to yield. When he was limp in her lap, she looked up to see Hengerer frowning worriedly. 

"Maybe we should admit him..." 

"He's going back to Chazz Dolan's place as soon as we leave here," Scully growled. "He needs peace and quiet and solitude. Staying here would kill him." 

Dr Hengerer studied her for a moment and visibly refrained from pointing out that there were good reasons why no doctor should treat a family member or close friend. 

"Dr Dolan has a small dispensary on site," he said quietly. "If you need more Valium, or if the two of you decide he needs something stronger, you can get it from her." 

"Oh, all right. Thank you, Dr Hengerer." 

He lifted a hand and left her there on the floor. Under her direction, Skinner picked Mulder up and put him back into the wheelchair. Scully helped hold his limp body into the seat while Skinner pushed. As they approached the glass doors, Scully could see Chazz's familiar van waiting at the curb. 

("Nick!") she called. 

Lermontov came at once, scrambling out of the van and limping over to meet them in the doorway. "Ohmigod, what happened, Dana? What's wrong? All I could hear was nightmares, and Fox crying; he couldn't hear me at all..." 

"We need to get him back to Chazz's ASAP," Scully explained. "I'll explain everything on the way." 

"Okay." 

* * *

They discovered, once they got back to Chazz's, that Valium could not hold Mulder for long. While he never quite woke up, that did nothing to inhibit his nightmares. Every time the sedative started to wear off, he would start to scream. It did not matter which of them got to him first, but nothing sufficed to calm him but physical contact with one or the other of his bondmates. 

Finally, they alternated holding him for the rest of the day, but when faced with the idea of retiring for the night, neither wanted to split the night. 

"Besides," Scully sighed, "it would disturb him. He knows when we switch." 

"Does he?" Nick asked. "I can't tell. He's just... It hurts to see him like this." 

"He will heal," Scully assured him. "This is psychological, Nick. I'm not exactly sure what's wrong, but time, peace and quiet can probably heal it." 

"It's a big bed, Dana," Nick said softly, hesitantly. "We could put him in the middle." 

She glanced at him, and then looked away, embarrassed. "I'm sorry, Nick. I know I'm being irrational about this." 

"I'm not that man you remember." 

"I know you aren't, Nick. When we are sending, I can tell that. But sometimes, when you walk by, or if I only catch a glimpse of you out of the corner of my eye... then it startles me for a moment, because I don't expect to see Krycek. I don't ever want to see Krycek ever again," she whispered, shivering. 

"I'm sorry," Nick whispered. 

"No, I'm sorry, Nick. I know you were as victimized as Mulder and the rest; as much as I have been. And you're right: seven or eight hours of uninterrupted contact with both of us is probably exactly what he needs." 

* * *

Nick showed up for bed wearing nothing but a battered pair of sweats cut off into shorts. Scully, even attired in her usual business-trip blue silk pajamas, felt exposed. Mulder, naked and still sedated, was in the middle of the king size bed that Chazz had in all of her 'guest rooms.' 

Nick climbed in, totally unselfconscious, and sprawled beside his bondmate, his arm thrown casually across Mulder's chest. Mulder turned his head toward his bondmate. 

Scully bit her lip, turned off the lights, and climbed in on the other side. She deliberately stroked Nick's hand where it lay on Mulder's chest. 

"Thank you, Nick. This would be so hard without you." 

He watched her settle her head on Mulder's shoulder. "We haven't ever really had time to talk, have we?" 

"About what?" 

"About my relationship with Fox. And Alex's with Fox." 

"Do you remember Alex's relationship?" she asked. 

"I don't really remember much of what happened when I was Alex... bits and pieces... it like a vaguely remembered dream..." he paused. "... or nightmare. What can you tell me?" 

"He was assigned as Mulder's partner when the X Files were closed and we were split up. Alex helped the Consortium kidnap me. They kept me for three months." 

She could feel Nick's shock. "What did they do to you?" he whispered. 

Scully went on to fill in some of the gaps in Nick's memories. 

There was a long moment of silence. "Bojemoi!" Nick whispered. 

"Yeah. What you said," Scully grinned at him wanly. 

He chuckled. "Okay. Any questions you want to ask me?" 

"How did the bondmate group relate to one another?" she asked promptly. "I know him, and I know what I am for him. But I don't know what I am to you, Nick, and I don't know what you are to me. I don't know how to relate to you." 

"Not sexually," he said at once. 

She blushed. 

"Maybe if the six of us had stayed together into adulthood, we might've begun a group relationship," Nick admitted. "But I don't think so. Certainly part of the reason against that happening would have been that Fox and Samantha are siblings. It wouldn't have been appropriate for us to exclude one or the other, and it certainly wouldn't have been appropriate to include them both! But our pair-bonds were very tight. We were never tempted to stray. Sex without the bond is..." 

"Bestiality," Scully nodded. "He told me that." 

"Sometimes it can just be physical relief," Nick added, nodding. "I don't know if Molly or Anni ever indulged outside the group. I don't think Molly did because we were inseparable. Anni had opportunities after Fox was sent to England, but I doubt that she ever did." 

"You think a woman's sexual need is less intense than a man's?" 

Nick licked his lips. "The two of you fantasized about one another for years; did you cat around on him? He didn't on you." 

She forced herself to maintain the eye contact. "No, I didn't. Even not understanding, no other man I met ever compared to him." Then she swallowed hard. "But you had a relationship like this, once before, didn't you? Had it and lost it...?" 

He nodded. "Just like Fox did. I knew I had lost a bondmate when Annaliese died... I just didn't know who it was. We've accounted for everyone; that's how we're sure that Samantha and Kyle are still alive. We would feel it if either of them died. We would know." 

She shuddered. "That's something I don't ever want to know." 

"I don't want you to ever know it, either," Nick said softly. "There isn't anything worse than that; feeling half of yourself die." He shuddered. 

"Nick." His eyes weren't focused. ("Nick.") 

He looked at her, startled. 

"We're here." 

He blinked back the tears. "I've just been so alone for so long..." 

"You aren't alone anymore." 

He reached across Mulder's still form, and brushed the tears off her face. "Thank you, Dana." 

"I'm still not too clear on a lot of what we are to one another," Scully said slowly, "but I think we all need each other." 

Nick nodded slowly. "You were what kept him sane while they had us, Dana. You were all he had to talk about. And it helped me, too, to hear the flunkies in the lab talking, to learn that there are more Project kids out there somewhere. Now I have hope that I may find someone, some day, to fill the hole in my heart where Molly was." 

"We're going to find everyone, Nick," she promised, her voice low but intense. "And once we do, well, then, we're going to burn the entire Project right to the ground." 

"I am so with you on that!" 

* * *

They talked for a while longer, but both were exhausted, and sleep came quickly. With all three in physical contact, there were no nightmares for anyone; just disjointed moments of happiness and an overriding feeling of contentment. 

Morning came far too soon. Scully woke up to find that, apparently without waking, Mulder had pulled her close and tucked her under his chin. This was familiar, and it made her feel a lot better. 

("Mulder?") 

He did not really answer her; he was not really awake. But he nestled closer. 

Scully smiled gently. ("Let me up; I gotta pee.") 

Again, this was their pattern; he teased her about having a hydraulic alarm clock that always got her up at six in the morning, and she teased back that at least she had learned to go back to  
sleep after responding to it. His grip on her loosened, and she slid out of bed. The toilet was only a few steps away. But when she stepped out of the bathroom and looked up at the bed, a dark head raised up from behind Mulder to study her with dark eyes. 

_Krycek!_ She shuddered. "Sorry, Nick; I just did it again." 

He nodded slowly. "I could tell. I'm glad you're not packin' heat right now." 

She smiled wanly, climbed back into bed, and leaned on Mulder's body so she could reach Nick. She kissed him lightly, chastely. 

"Thanks, Dana." He waited until she was snuggled back into Mulder's arms, and then he slid out of bed. "I'm getting up. Want me to bring you breakfast in bed?" 

She was already almost half asleep. "Not for a few hours..." 

"Okay, Dana. Just call me when you're ready." 

"Deal. Thanks, Nick." 

"You're welcome, Dana." 

Nickie came down the stairs slowly, dejection showing in the slump of his shoulders, the expression in his eyes. 

Chazz watched him and frowned slowly. "Nick, what's wrong?" 

"I've got to do something about what I look like, Chazz. When her eyes are closed, Dana can accept me as Nick Lermontov, but when she opens them or when she's not expecting to see me, I'm still Alex Krycek, the man who murdered Fox's father, who assisted in her abduction, who may have killed her sister. I wonder if plastic surgery would work?" 

Chazz smiled slowly. "How about we start with something a little less drastic?" 

Nickie looked puzzled. "What?" 

"Come with me." She grabbed Nickie by the hand and led him into the back of the house where she worked on the dogs. She pushed him gently into a chair and then gathered everything she needed off various shelves. "Okay, first off, we wash your hair. You have trouble with that, don't you?" 

"It's hard to do a lot of things one handed," he told her frankly. 

"Well, you should to talk to Rollie about that." 

Nick frowned, confused. Tyler worked on movies and television shows. "Why?" 

"When he's not making terrible TV shows and movies or trying to improve things over here, he and Angie do research for the Limb Institute of New Jersey. You'd be amazed at what they've been able to accomplish. From the way Fox described it, that prosthetic you used to wear is about twenty years out of date." 

Nick looked at her, shocked. No one except Fox ever talked to him about his lost arm. "Well, I didn't have much of a choice. It's hard to get good service when you're an international assassin," he commented a bit defensively. "The medical coverage sucks." 

Chazz smiled sympathetically. "Well, that doesn't mean you can't do anything about it now. Talk to Rollie. I'm sure he'd be more than willing to help. The strides that have been made in prosthetic limbs over the past few years are nothing short of amazing." 

Chazz was so enthusiastic, it was hard for Nickie to be mad at her. "I'll think about it. Now why are we out here?" 

"Well, you said you wished you looked different. Has Dana ever seen you blond?" 

The idea was startling. "No, I don't think so. I think Alex was always dark. It kind of fit the image, if you know what I mean?" 

"Well, then, first things first." She gestured, and he set the chair back against the sink. She then put a large plastic sheet over him. They negotiated positioning quickly and he was grinning at her when she used the hose to wet his hair. 

He nearly purred as she massaged the shampoo into his scalp. ( _I'd forgotten just how good it feels to have someone else do this..._ ) 

She followed up the shampoo with conditioner and then towel dried his hair. 

"Okay, Nick, sit up." She turned toward the counter alongside the sink, and only then did Nick see the array of scissors, combs and clippers. 

"I thought you were a psychiatrist?" 

"I also raise dogs and show some of them and I do all of my own grooming." 

He jerked around sharply. "I'm not going to end up looking like Francois, am I?" 

Chazz laughed. "No, nothing so drastic... although buzz cuts are all the rage..." she hinted. "Your hair would look 'plushy' that way." 

"Thanks, but no... I know what I look like in a brush cut. No, thanks." 

"Well, we've got a bit to work with, here; your hair's nice and long. Whatever kind of dye were you using on your hair? It's really damaged." 

He shrugged helplessly. "Probably whatever I found first whenever I needed to do it; I don't remember any professional, or even semi-pro help," he grinned at her. He looked into the wall mirror and actually studied his hair for the first time since his release from the train car. "Why does it look so weird?" 

"Usually this look has the black on top and the blond at the ends. You've got blond roots showing. Very blond," she commented. Chazz then picked up a pair of thin sharp shears and a comb and proceeded to trim off all the black ends, allowing them to fall to the floor. Then she set to work styling the pale honey-gold hair that was left. 

Twenty minutes later, Nickie looked at himself in the mirror and, for the first time in more years than he could count, he saw himself, Nicolai Lermontov, staring back at him from the mirror. Tears filled his eyes. Chazz was right: he really did not look like Alex Krycek any more. 

"How did you know this would work?" 

Chazz shrugged. "Hair color is one of the greatest defining characteristics in our looks. Change the hair color and people you know will look twice before they realize it's you. Alex was dark,  
Nickie is light. You really are two different people; maybe this will help Dana see that." 

Nickie, still rather bemused at the change, just stared back at her reflection in the mirror. "Maybe it will." 

* * *

Dana woke up to bright sunlight falling across the bed, and the unmistakable trembling in Mulder's body that meant he was crying again. 

("Sshhh...I'm here, love. It's all right...") 

There was no real answer; he cried himself back to sleep wrapped desperately around her. She lay still, stroking his forearm with her fingers. She drowsed, letting herself fall asleep again, and was startled when there was a gentle tap at the door. 

"Dana?" 

It was Chazz. 

"C'mon in." 

She entered slowly, but her peaceful expression faded as she studied Mulder's pale tear-streaked face. "Has he regained consciousness?" 

Scully moved just far enough out of his grasp that she could sit up. He snuggled into her lap but did not awaken. "No, Chazz, I don't think he has," she admitted. "He's stirred a bit and he's cried himself back to sleep twice. But that's all. It's not a zone-out because I can't wake him up. I really think it's psychological; none of his physical stressors were sufficient to cause anything like this." 

Chazz nodded. "But if he doesn't wake up in the next six or eight hours, we're going to have to start an IV and a catheter. He's already been fifteen hours without fluids." 

Scully had to agree with that; she had not counted up the elapsed time, but Chazz was right. 

"Has this downtime been at least peaceful?" Chazz asked, already sure she knew the answer. 

Scully snorted. "Hardly. He has nightmares, Chazz; he always has. And he has more material for the Technicolor kind than any three people you know." 

"So you don't think the nightmares are part of the stress from this most recent incident?" 

"Of course they are!" Scully laced both hands through her hair, working out the worst of the knots. "But since he wasn't shocked back into catatonia by the Quickening that Miklaus caused, I'm confident he'll deal with it and come back." She stopped and stared guiltily at Chazz. Her guilt changed to bewilderment when Chazz did not ask what a Quickening was. 

Chazz noticed right away. "Ooops. You weren't supposed to say anything about that, were you?" she commented with a grin. 

"No, my informant said that he wouldn't voluntarily out any other Immortal." Scully got a speculative look on her face. "Hmm..." 

"We'll talk later. It'll probably help Mulder deal with the Quickening to talk to someone about it, anyhow. Don't worry so. If he's not out of it by dinner we'll hook him up to an IV so he doesn't get dehydrated," Chazz said firmly. She studied the pair before her for a moment, and then stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jeans. "What kinds of dreams is he having?" 

Scully frowned. "I don't know." 

"Those first few days you spent at my house," Chazz was thinking hard, "you immersed yourself in his dreams, and you kept him from having nightmares. Why can't you do that now?" 

"Do you think I haven't been trying?!" Scully snapped. "What I've learned is that while I'm in charge of the Sentinel/Guide relationship, as bondmates, he's the one in control. He can insert  
himself into my dreams, or allow me into his. Right now, I'm having trouble getting him to hear my physical voice. I can't get through telepathically at all." 

"That sounds very much as if he's trying to protect you from whatever horror he had to endure," Chazz pointed out. 

Scully stared up at her. "The bastard's ditched me again!" she realized. She looked down at her partner and feigned a slap across his face. "Damn you, Fox Mulder! You promised no more ditches!" 

He shuddered. 

Scully gasped; he had heard her speak. "Yes, I'm annoyed!" She followed up her advantage at once. "We're partners, you said. Bondmates. Two halves of a single whole. I'm so important to you that you insist that when I die you'll follow! Well, I'm not letting you go alone, either, Mulder! If you leave me, I'll die. Do you hear me? If you don't come back to me, I'm going to die..." 

He definitely could hear her; his respiration rate went up noticeably, and he moaned. 

"C'mon, Mulder. I want you with me. I'm all alone, Mulder. Where are you? Come back to me..." 

He surfaced with a gasp. "Scully?!" 

"Right here," she assured him. "Settle down. Breathe, Mulder. In, hold it, out, hold it, in, hold it..." She talked him through his disorientation and distress, ceasing only when he sighed. 

"Thanks, Scully. I was drowning." 

"You were asleep," she contradicted him hesitantly. 

He shuddered and sat up so he could scrub at his face with both hands. "I was drowning in other people," he elaborated. "Too many memories of too many people... and 'way too much emotion involved in all of it. Mostly pain and terror... and a lot of anger. I lost me and I couldn't find you." 

"I was right here," she frowned worriedly. "Nick and I have been careful to keep one or the other of us in physical contact with you every moment." 

Mulder frowned and shivered. Scully pulled the blanket up over him. 

"What?" 

"Some of the nightmares were my own," he admitted in a low voice. "I dreamt that Krycek came back, kidnapped you and Nick, and was torturing you both to punish me." 

Chazz and Scully traded worried glances. Mulder's word choices and tone seemed to indicate that he was thinking of Nick and Alex Krycek as two totally separate beings. 

("Nick!") Scully called, discovering that she needed his help. 

("Dana!") He acknowledged the call at once. In a moment, the bedroom door was flung open and Nick, resplendent and confident in his new haircut, came unhesitatingly into the room. "Hi, Fox!" He sat down beside his bondmate and hugged him tightly. "Welcome back!" 

Mulder returned the hug, burying his face against Nick's neck. "Why did Alex hate me?" he asked, through a throat suddenly clogged with tears. "We were partners... he was a good man!  
I liked him! I thought he liked me... but he helped abduct Scully, and I think he killed Duane Barry and tried to frame me for it. He killed my father and Dana's sister... How could anyone change so dramatically, Nick? I liked him! He was a good man, and then, suddenly, he was a monster! I don't understand..." He wilted against Nick, crying quietly. 

Nick looked at Scully over Mulder's shoulders. 

"He knew I was startled by you looking like Krycek," Scully said quietly. "But he was so hammered by all the different people from the Quickening that he doesn't remember the truth." 

"Dana, you didn't hear what he just said!" Chazz interrupted. 

Both Scully and Lermontov turned to stare at her. Even Mulder was listening. 

"He has always found Krycek an enigma; some part of him recognized his bondmate. For one bondmate to conspire against another... against a bonded pair...? How much does that threaten your sense of reality as a bondmate? For you, Mulder, it is especially disturbing because, as a profiler, you're supposed to be an expert in understanding people's motivations, their behaviors... I'll bet every profile you ever tried to write on Krycek was utter crap; not because you don't know your business, but because Krycek was a puppet. He was the bondmate, but he was also Spender's puppet. Nothing Krycek did came from one motivation, and the doubled and tripled motivation levels confused Krycek as much as they did you." 

"So every contact with Krycek undermined Mulder's self-confidence?" Nick asked hesitantly. 

"His self-confidence, his faith in the sanctity of the pair-bond connection... his ability to profile, to function as an agent..." 

Mulder was listening, his eyes wet and fastened on Chazz's face. When she faced him directly he had to fight not to quail away from her searching gaze. 

"I was afraid that if you ever really looked at me you'd see all the way down to what's left of my soul." 

Scully could feel him trembling. ("Shhhh...") She moved closer, and she and Nick sandwiched him between the two of them. 

"Fox?" Nick spoke up hesitantly. 

"Yeah?" 

"Alex did like you. He didn't understand why, but he did. He hated the orders he got that meant that he had to hurt you... but he could not disobey They did something to him: drugs, maybe; something. And remember, he's dead, Fox. Let him rest in peace." 

"Dead?" 

Nick turned a little, shifting to get more comfortable, and the stump of his left arm became visible. Mulder froze as the memories of Nick's life since Molly's death suddenly cascaded. 

The emotional bombardment hit all three bondmates none of them knowing where which memory came from, and they collapsed into one another's arms, sobbing. 

Chazz let them cry for a few minutes. As Mulder's exhaustion began to catch up with him, the other two began to calm down, as well. 

"I thought you said you didn't remember being Alex?" Dana asked, wiping the tears off her face with her palms. 

Nick shuddered once from head to foot. "I don't! I swear! I just... I just remember feelings. Sometimes, I can see a couple of seconds of a scene. I remember killing a tram car operator, but I don't know why, or when it happened." He shuddered. "Alex was a monster..." 

It was Chazz who spoke up. "No, he was an imposed personality," she said quietly. "You'll remember more and more of what he did, I suspect. Because your subconscious will want to integrate Alex's memories to fill in the empty spaces, to account for the empty time. You had to be functioning at some level as Nick or Alex would never have been able to pull off the masquerade. Too much of human functioning is subliminal and non-verbal for them to have taught Alex everything he would have needed to know. You had to do a lot of the day-to-day, minute-by-minute functioning: things like ordering food in a restaurant, how to walk through a crowd on the sidewalk or in the halls, driving a car... dealing with people face-to-face. Alex took total control and did the things that Nick would not do: kill and hurt and kidnap." 

Chazz stopped, and watched Nick's face. 

He considered what she had said, and slowly relaxed as the truth of it sank in. Eventually he looked up at her. "How did you know?" he asked. 

She shrugged, smiling faintly. "This is what I do, Nick. As Mulder says, I unscrew people's heads and put them back together again so they can function." 

* * *

Mulder recovered quickly after that. He got up and let Scully stand him in the shower and scrub him down. Nick brought him clean sweats, and they escorted him to the table, where Chazz had heated up more of her marvelous chicken noodle soup, and, this time, fresh hot corn muffins. 

While they ate, Matthew, Duncan, Amanda and Methos showed up, interested in seeing how Mulder was doing. Mulder looked up. "Okay, which one of you is it?" 

"He's quick; I'll give him that," Matthew commented to no one in particular. 

"But not too quick," Amanda commented. "Why do you think it's only one of us?" she asked over her shoulder as she followed Chazz and Scully into the kitchen leaving the men at the table. Scully helped Chazz load the dishwasher while Amanda looked through Chazz's freezer to see what they could make for dinner. She was impressed and amazed at the contents. 

"You've got more stuff here than we do at the loft." 

"You're not feeding Rollie, the Bumbershoot boys and Laddey most nights! I made them start buying groceries I was going broke!" Chazz told her with a grin. 

* * *

Jim and Blair arrived in time for dinner, as did Rollie, who came across from the farm house carrying Teddi because he did not feel like cooking and knew that when there were people in residence, Chazz always cooked more than was needed. 

After dinner, Rollie took Teddi back home to put her to bed early; she had been crabby and out-of-sorts all day. Blair tagged along; Rollie had received a package from his adopted family in Docker River, and Blair dearly wanted to look over the magic and luck charms that had been sent for Teddi. 

Everyone else gathered outside and the patio, with a fire in the grate, was a quiet and comfortable place. Mulder and his bondmates were asleep together on the thick soft cushion they had pulled off the papasan chair. They looked like a pile of puppies; Scully was curled up inside the curve of Mulder's body, her head actually pillowed on Nick's belly, while Nick's was pillowed on Mulder's thigh. 

Methos was sitting on the ground nearby, a small collection of Orca Ale bottles accumulating around him The others were talking quietly about what had happened over the course of the last few weeks. What Methos was perceiving, from his position in the shadows, was that the group of strangely assorted friends who had become what he privately had been calling his Clan, had adopted the trio of waifs from Washington DC. 

( _Plus, Matthew McCormick is a sort of kissing cousin,_ ) Methos decided, ( _since he's Mac's friend and Carl's, but those three... Those three do grow on you. So much pain, and so much love, radiating out to affect everyone around them who isn't completely headblind..._ ) 

The parallels between his own relationship with Duncan and Amanda, and Mulder's with Scully and Nick, were not exact, but there were echoes: he needed their support to feel safe. Mulder  
needed Scully and Nick to feel whole. 

( _And Nick, at least, seems to need Fox and Dana as much as Fox needs them... This is so weird...!_ ) 

His ruminations were interrupted when the puppy pile stirred and unfolded. Without apparently waking up either of the men, Scully freed herself from their embrace and stood, yawning. 

"Dana?" That was Chazz, alerted by the movement. 

Scully lifted a hand. "We're okay. I just need to hit the head. Can I bring anything out?" 

Chazz looked around, but everyone seemed content. "I guess not." 

Scully nodded and turned, obviously still sleepy, and padded lazily into the house. Methos, watching the men she had left, saw them shift a little, making themselves comfortable, but neither of them woke up, as far as he could tell. 

No one else was paying any attention. 

Then, abruptly, the atmosphere changed. 

At the far end of the patio, upwind from the fire, where he had been talking with Duncan, Jim Ellison stood abruptly, turning toward the house. "Sonofabitch !" 

As he started to run, both Mulder and Lermontov rolled apart, scrambling to their feet, running toward the house, eyes wide with panic. Neither wasted any breath on speech. 

Reflex shoved Methos to his feet, and he followed them, knowing that Jim was right behind him with the dogs yapping at their heels. 

Lermontov crashed through the doorway, with Mulder a step behind him. Powerful hands grabbed Nick's shirt and yanked, slamming him headfirst into the wall. He collapsed, unconscious. Mulder skidded to a halt and turned to face the foe. He froze in shock as he recognized one of the Alien Bounty Hunters. 

"No!" he screamed. "Not again! Never again!" He attacked, not caring that he had no weapons, needing only to avenge years of pain and degradation. 

Methos was shocked; he recognized the foe, as well. Without the need for any conscious thought at all, one of his omnipresent daggers was in his hand. As the unnamed enemy bent to choke Mulder, Methos leapt and shoved the blade into the back of the huge man's neck. 

Mulder fell as the ABH's grip failed. He rolled aside, his breath rasping in his throat, as the body crashed to the floor where he had been, and began to corrode at once. 

"Get back!" he tried to wave Methos back, not wanting the other man exposed to the toxin any more than necessary. 

Methos retrieved his blade, shaking off the worst of the green goop, hissing at the nasty smell. But before he could respond to Mulder, Jim hurdled them and kept running most of the dogs following him. Mulder scrambled to his feet. 

("DANA!!!") He could tell she was still alive, but she was not answering him, and all he could imagine were things too horrible to contemplate. 

Outside, on the front lawn, another ABH had an unconscious Scully thrown over his shoulder and he was running at a fast trot for a van parked on the side of the road. Jim, on the other hand, was flying, motivated with the rage of a Sentinel seeing another pair separated and a Guide threatened. He hit the bigger man at shoulder height and took him down hard. Scully's limp form fell to the ground and rolled a few feet away. 

Mulder's brain was cranking at a thousand miles an hour, jazzed on the adrenaline of terror and combat. He had noticed that the alien blood toxin had not affected Methos in the least. He did not know why, but the fact was undeniable. So he turned to glance at Methos, who was passing him because he had still not regained his full strength. He slowed down, knowing that he could not keep up with the others. 

"Don't let Jim breathe the blood fumes!" he screamed after the racing Immortal. 

Methos did not bother acknowledging that. "Jim," he called as he approached the scene of the struggle. "When I take him, grab Dana and get out of range!" 

"What ?!" Jim began to protest, but there was no time. 

Methos jumped onto the ABH's shoulders, the already-stained dagger lifted to strike. "Jim, damn it, duck!" 

Jim just obeyed; he rolled away, taking Dana with him as he went. The moment he was clear, Methos plammed the second ABH. When he stood up, the green goop was eating into his jeans and his sneakers were ruined, too. Hastily, he stripped off the affected items. 

Exhausted, Mulder dropped to his knees beside Scully's motionless form. "Dana? Dana?" 

Jim sat up, still panting a little. "She's breathing. I think he choked her unconscious." Even as he spoke, Scully stirred. 

Weakly, she tried to sit up. Mulder pulled her up against his body and rocked her, his eyes closed, tears running unashamedly down his face. He was focused on her so tightly that he never noticed the others as they came running up until Amanda's voice cut through all the confusion. 

"What's going on? What happened to Nick?" 

Startled, Mulder looked up; Scully straightened. Then they stared at one another for one horrified moment. 

"NICK!" They were on their feet in a heartbeat, their hands still tightly clasped, and they ran back to the house. 

Jim, who had been backing away from the stinking puddle of green goo soaking into the lawn, looked up as Methos cursed under his breath and took off after the bondmates. Jim followed. 

When Methos entered the house he found that Chazz had had Duncan carry Nick over to the couch so she could examine him. The rest were all clustered around the spot where the other ABH had dissolved. 

"Get further away," he warned as Jim came up to join him. 

"What the hell happened to your clothes?" Jim commented as he and Methos stared at the hole in the hardwood floor that went through to the basement in several places. "Chazz is going to have seven fits when she sees this!" 

"Sees what?" Chazz growled, alerting to the mention of her name. 

"How's Nick?" Methos asked, trying to divert her, if only momentarily. 

"He'll be fine, barring a probable headache. I repeat: Sees what?" 

Jim backed away and let Chazz to see the ruin of her kitchen floor. 

"My floor!" she gasped. "What the hell did this?" 

"Demon." "Alien." Methos and Mulder answered together. They turned to stare at one another. 

"Demon?" 

"Alien?" 

Mulder spoke first. "We call them the Alien Bounty Hunters. They're one of two or three different alien races that are currently battling on and over Earth. How did you know enough to plam it?" 

Methos glanced over to where MacLeod and McCormick stood in the doorway and the youngest Immortal shrugged and answered. "I trust him, Duncan. And they already know about us." 

Mulder shrugged. "I figured at least two of you were Immortal, I just didn't figure that all of you were," he commented, pieces of the puzzle finally falling into place. 

Methos sighed. "I learned how kill them over four thousand years ago." 

Matthew saw the look of skepticism on Mulder's face and grinned at him. "I told you nothing much could harm us, at least not permanently. And I did say we were Immortal." 

Methos sighed. "I found that killing them that way worked just as well as taking their heads and didn't cause nearly as much damage to any mortals that might be in the vicinity. I lost an entire village the first time I fought them. Then I hunted a pair of them on and off for the better part of a century before I caught up with and beheaded one of them. I found his partner strangling one of the elders of that village. I stabbed him in the back of the neck because I couldn't take his head without killing both of them and there hadn't seemed to be as much of the fumes when I took his head as when we just wounded him. It worked and the elder lived. I remembered it when I saw them again." Methos shrugged. He had seen a lot in his fifty centuries of life. "Demon, alien, they're all the same. They all want to kill you and to tell you the truth, they're not as bad as some Immortals I've met." 

"Beheading would work," Mulder said thoughtfully, glancing at his bondmates, who were sitting together on the couch. 

"Yeah," Methos nodded again, "but they bleed more that way and that green shit is painful even to an Immortal. If you pith them, they hardly bleed at all." 

"Plam." 

"Pith, plam, whatever. If you sever the spinal column where it attaches to the brain, they don't bleed much and they die. Back then, I thought they were a demon form of Immortal. You couldn't feel them coming, and you couldn't kill them easily without endangering everyone else." 

"That still doesn't answer why there's no body and why whatever that is ate though my floor!" Chazz growled. 

"Their blood dissolves into an acid that reacts with air," Scully replied, her voice a bit scratchy. "If you're exposed to it, it can cause significant physical damage and a very painful death if it  
isn't treated immediately. If you plam them, there's little or no blood loss and the bodies just melt." 

"Ding, dong the witch is dead!" Methos mumbled to himself. 

Mulder nodded. "Pretty much. Even though there was little blood loss, I suggest that we close the door to the rest of the house and open all the windows in here. We don't know what extended exposure to the body remnants can do to a person." 

Methos stared down at the mess for another moment, then went into the pantry and came out with a box of baking soda. 

Mulder laughed. 

Methos shrugged. "It probably can't hurt and might actually work on neutralizing this stuff. Go on, get everyone out of here." 

"Don't forget the basement. It's probably started to etch the concrete down there." 

"What am I going to tell the insurance company?" Chazz wondered. 

"Nothing. I'll make sure it gets fixed," Mulder told her. "He was after us, it's our fault it happened. We'll leave as soon as we get our stuff together. If they've traced us here, you could still be in danger." 

"Now that we know what's going on, we can set a guard. You're in no shape to go anywhere. In fact, you should be in bed!" 

"Chazz, these guys can..." 

"I mean it!" she glared at him. "Go find your cohorts and get some sleep. Obviously, Adam can cope with this, and I don't want to hear you taking any more blame on yourself. It's not your fault. Go on, or I'll unscrew your head but good!" 

Knowing she was perfectly capable of doing just that, Mulder held up his hands in surrender and went through to the other room in search of his companions. Before he left though, he had one more comment: "If you set guards, set two. These guys can become anyone." 

Left behind with Methos and Jim, Chazz allowed worry and puzzlement to appear on her face. 

"I wish I knew what the root of his guilt complex was." 

McCormick came into the room on the tail end of this statement, shut the door behind himself. 

"Try a set of parents who allowed him to be experimented on from before his birth and then blamed him when his sister was taken by the same people. His parents knew all along what had happened to his sister and they still blamed him." 

Chazz looked puzzled. "How do you know that?" 

"I was talking to Skinner. The three geeks haven't found out a lot yet, but they've found out that much. There was a loose leaf notebook in the pile of computer stuff that Mac rescued from  
the train car. One of the techs that was holding Mulder and Nick had been with the program from the beginning and had kept _all_ the memos he'd ever been sent and apparently some that he acquired from other sources as well. Skinner said he had skimmed through it and it was a study of a nightmare. He definitely does _not_ want Mulder to see it but I think it would be a good thing if you did." 

"He hasn't asked me to be his therapist. In good conscience, I can't..." 

McCormick sighed. "I'll talk to Mulder. He's going to need help working through this and it seems like the Immortals are perfect to help him against the aliens. He's been fighting so long with only Scully for help, he'll probably struggle against us joining in, but he needs help and at least we believe him." 

"We do?" Chazz asked suspiciously. She turned to Methos. "I hate to say this, but I need a bit more proof. The only person to corroborate his story has a none-too-great a grasp on reality  
himself." 

Methos made a face at her. "I know it really does sound crazy, but you have evidence in front of you. And, crazy or not, we might want to remember that Mulder suggested we not stand around in this room. Mac and I can take care of this tomorrow. Once we have everything that's been contaminated out, Rollie and the boys can repair your floor and the lawn where we killed the other one." 

"What about my lawn?!" she cried. 

Chazz ran through the house and she followed Methos to the spot where the other ABH had fallen. Sitting there on the lawn about twenty feet away were several of the dogs. All of them growling but none of them getting any closer to the spot. Duncan was standing over it. 

"Which just goes to show you that the dogs have more sense than any of us," Chazz commented wryly. "Duncan, can you and Adam can take care of this while I take the dogs back to the kennels?" She noticed that there was not as much damage to the grass and earth beneath it as there had been in the house. "You know we should try to figure out why it did more damage inside. You killed them the same way, right, Adam?" 

"Yeah, I did." Methos circled the ground carefully then looked further down the drive. "You know, we really should do something about that van, too. Make sure there isn't a tracking device in it or anything like that." 

"And how do you suggest we do that?" Jim asked as he joined them. 

"Drive it far away and send it off a cliff," Methos shrugged. "Check to see if there's anything that can tell us anything on the way." 

Jim looked unhappy. "Road trip." 

"Yup. If we leave now, we can be back by morning." Methos grinned mirthlessly. "I'll follow you in my van." Go tell Blair where we're going." 

"I'll get Rollie, too," Jim commented. "He's more likely to spot anything in the van than I am. And that leaves Duncan, Matt and Amanda to play guard here." 

Methos nodded. "Makes sense. Ten minutes." He turned to Chazz. "And you thought Immortals were strange," he commented. 

"Adam, ever since I met you it's felt as if I fell down the rabbit hole after Alice. I never know what's going to happen next. She shrugged. "At least I'm not bored any more." 

"Were you?" he asked as they started slowly back toward the house. 

She considered a moment how to answer. "Yeah, I was. It was getting to be routine to treat police officers. I treated one successfully, so they sent me a couple more. Before I knew it,  
most of my practice was cops. I actually started up the Therapy Dogs as a way of getting some diversity." 

"Are you sorry you met us that day?" 

"No!" she exclaimed. "If I hadn't met you, I wouldn't have met Angie and Rollie, and if I hadn't met Rollie I wouldn't have found someone I could love," she answered seriously. "Having Rollie is worth anything that might happen, believe me. I never thought I'd find someone. No one ever seemed right. I finally figured out why: I kept looking at normal, but I was waiting for weird." 

Methos laughed. "Well, stick with this crew and I can promise you all the weird you can handle!" 

As they approached the house Blair met them in the doorway. 

"Chazz? What happened to the floor in the kitchen?"

#### If you enjoyed this story, please feed the author.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title: **Chilmark Project IV - Ancient Evil**  
Author: Wylfcynne Ravenwald  
Details: 138k  ·  PG-13  ·  Series  ·  12/31/05  ·   Email/Website      
Gossamer Category(Keywords): Crossover   [Romance, Friendship, Angst]     
Crossover: Macleod, Methos, Amanda, Joe Dawson and Matt McCormick are from the Highlander Universe, Jim & Blair are from the Sentinel Universe. Angie and Rollie are from the F/X: The Series Universe   
Characters: Mulder, Scully, Macleod, Amanda, Methos, Jim & Blair     
Pairings: Mulder/Scully, Jim/Blair. Angie/Joe, Chazz/Rollie   
SPOILERS: up to Demons and then we take a left into weirdness   
SUMMARY: This is the sequel to Foxhunt; Mulder is   
recovering but, just to make things more interesting, there are two serial killers operating in nearby   
Seacouver. Can Mulder NOT get involved in that? Of course not! 


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